SFI, AISA to contest Delhi University Students Union polls in alliance against ABVP

The CPI(M)-affiliated SFI and the CPI(ML) Liberation-backed AISA will challenge the ruling Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in the elections. The ABVP is the students’ wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

The SFI and the AISA said their detailed manifesto will be released in the coming days, but their core poll planks are instituting an elected internal complaints committee (ICC) and gender sensitisation cells in all colleges, scrapping specialised elective courses (SEC) and value-added courses (VAC), revising the internal assessment scheme, ending the mandatory attendance and debarment policy, and ending fee hikes.

“In the last 10 years, ABVP’s dominance has been enabled by the national level consolidation of power in the hands of the BJP-RSS. ABVP’s reign has been of an ineffective and anti-student DUSU, which acts as an agent of the administration and the Sangh. Every move to dismantle public education and destroy DU, from the introduction of NEP to relentless Fee Hikes, has been met with shameless support of ABVP,” the joint statement said.

“Under ABVP, we have seen a reign of an ineffective and anti-student DUSU. Every year the air is filled with names, the road blocked with cars and every inch of the campus plastered at great expense. A long list of promises are made but as always their politics of money and muscle power defeats the agenda and interests of the students of DU. It is upon the progressive forces to give a tough reply to their politics of communalism and violence, making way for a politics of movement and democracy… Understanding this necessity the progressive forces of DU have decided to come together in this year’s DUSU elections,” it added.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Ashutosh Singh, National Media convenor ABVP said “Left-wing student organizations have minimal impact in Delhi University, so their alliance won’t bring any change in this DUSU elections. In 2018, CYSS and AISA formed an alliance and received zero seats in DUSU elections. ABVP has consistently countered left-wing groups propaganda in DU. Their shrinking footprint has pushed them in a fight for Survival where they are coming together to fight so that they can cross NOTA.”

The deadline to file nominations in the DUSU polls is September 17. Voting is scheduled to take place on September 27. Morning college students can vote from 8.30 am to 1 pm, and evening college students can vote from 3 pm to 7 pm. The votes will be counted on September 28.

In the 2023 DUSU election, ABVP candidates won the positions of president, joint secretary, and secretary, while an NSUI candidate was elected as vice president.