SFI-AISF sweep JNU students’ union elections

Albina Shakeel of SFI was elected joint secretary with 1,233 votes defeating her nearest ABVP rival Abhay Pratap Singh, who polled 830 votes.

The AISF-SFI combine bagged 20 of the 27 posts of councillors, followed by ABVP (4) and others (3). After the landslide victory, the SFI-AISF supporters took out a victory procession, where the students danced to drum beats. It started from the School of International Studies and ended at the Jhelum lawns, where a public meeting was held. Vishal Bharti, a newly-elected councillor from the School of Languages said, “ We have not slept since the past three days. Counting of votes was delayed by a day following allegations of irregularities by the parties. The counting began after dinner last night and results were declared this afternoon”.

Students attribute AISA’s failure to the lack of dedicated leadership. A student said, “After the death of student leader Chandrashekhar in Bihar, AISA has witnessed a lot of infighting. They have not been able to stay in action. Also, very few freshers this year joined the AISA”.

However, AISA general secretary Ranjit Abhigyan described the poll outcome as the “victory of the opportunist liberal Left and their unholy alliance with a section of ABVP”.