The Hindu : New Delhi News : Surprises, disappointments in DUSU lists

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 25, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Surprises, disappointments in DUSU lists

By Lakshmi B. Ghosh

NEW DELHI, AUG. 24. It was a day of surprise and disappointment for some and time to make a choice between personal aspirations and party loyalty for others on the North Campus as political dreams were made and unmade on Monday outside the Chief Election Office for the upcoming Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) polls.

Despite a volte face by her party, the National Students' Union of India (NSUI)'s winning candidate of last year, Ragini Nayak, brushed aside her personal disappointment and put up a brave front by deciding to abide by the party decision, but as the deadline for withdrawal of nominations drew closer many others gave in to the temptation.

Although ABVP had made its presidential candidate clear on Saturday, it remained tight-lipped about its other panel members till the end on Monday. By the time the final list came out late in the afternoon, ABVP had a new worry -- a five-digit ballot combination as against a comparatively easy-to-remember four-digit of the NSUI -- but one that the student outfit said does not really make a difference.

If last year saw NSUI's long-time worker Meena Dabas leave the organisation for the lure of the presidential post from the newly formed Indian National Students' Organisation (INSO), the Bharti College student this year decided to desert INSO after being denied the presidential ticket. She has now joined a new organisation and has filed nominations for all four seats, managing to get ballot number one with an added double "A'' initial to her name.

Like last year, NSUI lost out on another worker to INSO with Raminder Kaur accepting the INSO offer to contest the secretary post after being denied a ticket again this year. Interestingly, NSUI had fielded Raminder's name for all the four posts, and since the party announced its final panel only in the eleventh hour, Raminder seems to have decided not to withdraw her name from any of the seats, although officially INSO declared her as their candidate for the post of secretary.

Though NSUI expressed ignorance about Raminder's decision to defect, an official statement by INSO had the first year postgraduate student of Buddhist Studies -- also considered last year for a central panel post -- accusing NSUI of "distributing tickets on the basis of money and political approach" and her decision to join INSO to expose its true face as "no self respectful girl can work in NSUI because you have to suffer humilities''. As has been the case in the past, this year's DUSU polls too will have its share of dummy candidates. With a number of dummy candidates against Ragini being cited as one of the reasons for her being dropped, it will be a case of hoping against hope for Bhagini Nivedita College's Ragini who was probably hoping to benefit from the former DUSU secretary's name. Interestingly enough, the Chief Election Officer, Rajeev Khanna, said the nomination of another Ragini dummy was cancelled after her college denied clearing a change in her name.

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