Red rules in JNU students union polls, AISA bags top posts

Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) was painted red again with the ultra-Left All India Students Association on Saturday sweeping the students' union polls winning all the top four posts and majority of councillors' seats.

AISA's Sucheta De, a PhD Geography student, trumped SFI-AISF combine's Ziko Dasgupta by a margin of 1,251 votes for the post of president. De won a whopping 2,102 votes while Gupta managed to garner only 751 votes.

Abhishek Yadav was elected as the Vice President defeating his nearest rival by a margin of 620 while Ravi Prasad won the General Secretary post by a margin of 919 votes.

Mohd Firoz is the new Joint Secretary. He defeated his nearest rival by 579 votes.

As many as 123 candidates were in fray for the 30 seats, including the four top posts for the polls conducted after a gap of four years.

Majority of the councillors' seat was also won by the AISA.

The varsity has traditionally been a bastion of Leftist groups. Notably, the last student union, that was elected in 2007, was also dominated by AISA.

The candidates this time had focused on struggle to restore the democratic process, the Lyngdoh committee recommendations and the need to reject them and a whole host of pent up issues of students.