JNU Student Union Election: United Left defeat ABVP, win all four posts of central panel

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Defeating the RSS-backed ABVP with considerable margins, the united-Left alliance on Saturday retained all four seats in the Jawaharlal Nehru University students union election. Geeta Kumari, the United Left candidate won the president's post by defeating ABVP's Nidhi Tripathi by 464 votes.

Elated over the victory, Geeta Kumari, while talking to news agency PTI, said,"The credit for mandate goes to students because people still believe that democratic spaces should be saved and right now, the only resistance is from students." She also promised to take up Najeeb issue, JNU seat cuts, new hostels, saving the autonomy of JS-cash and deprivation points.

Election panel officials informed PTI that Shabana Ali of BAPSA (Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students Association) polled 935 votes. “We are satisfied with the results although we were expecting to do better,” Shabana was quoted as saying by a report in The Indian Express.  Out of the total 4639 votes polled, 4620 were valid as 19 votes were discarded after voters put their slips in wrong ballots, they said.

For vice presidents post, AISAs Simone Zoya Khan got 1,876 votes out of total 4,620 votes. Khan defeated Durgesh Kumar of ABVP who got 1028 votes. Duggirala Srikrisha (Left) won the General Secretary's post by polling 2082 votes. He was followed by ABVPs Nikunj Makwana- 975 votes. The post of Joint Secretary has gone to Shubhanshu Singh (Left) who got 1755 votes. Pankaj Keshari of ABVP got 920 votes.

Polling for the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) election was held on September 08. The election was held in two phases -- between 9.30 am and 1 pm, and 2.30 pm and 5.30 pm.

Former JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, who has been campaigning for AISF and its presidential candidate Aparajitha Raja, had earlier said that the turnout this year was very low because of various developments in the past two years. 

"It may be because of loss of confidence among students because of various things that had happened, including the Najeeb missing case and seat cuts, in the last two years. The outgoing JNUSU, despite fighting against right wing and seat cuts, were not able to get desired results," Kumar had said. 

(With inputs from agencies)