SFI - CLJ Combine To Contest

All Key DUSU Seats

WITH the SFI and the Chhatra Lok Janshakti (CLJ) deciding to contest jointly for all the key posts, the Delhi University is set to witness a three-cornered contest for the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) this time.  The student wings of the Congress and the BJP – NSUI and ABVP respectively – are jolted by this combination led by the SFI. Not only is the new combination seeking to be more than a tip in a delicate balance, it may as well cause some shock reverses.

The combine’s four candidates were introduced to the press on August 26. Akhila Singh (SFI) is contesting for president post, Swarnjeet Kumar (CLJ) for vice-president, Vijay Shandar Pandey (CLJ) for secretary and Shiksha Khatri (SFI) for joint-secretary. Both the SFI candidates contested the DUSU elections last year and secured substantial votes. The combine would be fighting the DUSU elections and the college union elections with a joint declaration and joint campaign.

The ABVP and NSUI’s neglect of student issues and the inactivity of students’ unions under their leadership has led to disenchantment among the student community which is reflected in the sharply dropping voting percentage in successive DUSU elections. At the same time there is demand for a genuinely democratic alternative to the retrograde politics of these outfits. The SFI-CLJ’s goal is to provide such an alternative.

The key issues to be raised by the SFI-CLJ combine include, opposition to fee hikes and self-financing courses, Academic Reforms, Committee Against Sexual Harassment, Transport facilities, Reservation for SC/ST students and Hostels. SFI-CLJ demands that the university provides hostels to all outstation students-particularly to girl students-and expresses its consistent opposition to all forms of fee-hikes. We also demand that hostel facilities be provided for the South campus colleges.

The combine has appealed to the student community to rally behind it to carry forward the struggle against communalism and commercialisation of education.

Earlier at a press conference on August 23, Prasanjit Bose, secretary of SFI Delhi state committee and Kunwar Asim Khan, national president of the CLJ announced at a crowded press conference the alliance. They said they have joined forces with the perspective of providing a genuine secular-democratic alternative to the NSUI and the ABVP in Delhi University. Replying to persistent queries, Bose said “it is a fight between decadent forces of status quo versus forces of struggle.”

They also came down heavily on the Congress-affiliated National Students Union of India (NSUI) for having failed to take up student issues and provide an effective leadership to the secular resistance.

With all the major forces announcing their candidates it is clear that perhaps the maximum number of women are in the fray for the principal posts and communalisation and women issues  have started manifesting themselves. In fact six of eleven candidates for the President are women.

What the SFI combine is hoping for is a high poll. But past history shows that polling is between 38 to 40 per cent with campaigns at times being nothing more than display of money power. With issues coming into play they are hoping to make some dent. (INN)