The Hindu : Front Page : One long day, and long night, on JNU campus

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Oct 28, 2005

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One long day, and long night, on JNU campus

Staff Reporter

VOTER'S DAY: The scene on the JNU campus on Thursday. - PHOTO: RAJEEV BHATT

NEW DELHI: Unlike in years past, the much talked about students' union elections at Jawaharlal Nehru University here went off smoothly on Thursday, devoid of any "technical glitches", "demands for extra time from the Election Committee" or any other last-minute high drama normally associated with the annual battle of the ballot.

Instead, the campus went to the polls with a lot of fervour and colour. Very much in place were loud bursts of slogan-shouting, distribution of pamphlets, last-minute wooing of voters and busy-bodies out to make that last-ditch effort to make the decisive friendly contact.

The first phase of polling in the morning didn't bring out too many voters, but this was more than made up in the latter half of the day that saw eager voters waiting in long queues to cast their ballots amid intense slogan-fights among the rival parties. At the end of the day, the voter turnout was put at a robust 63 per cent.

The exercise was wrapped up around 7 p.m. climaxing long days of tension and suspense and an extremely long night of intense debate. Counting of votes to decide the central panel and school councillors of the JNU Students' Union was slated to begin around 10 p.m. and the results would be declared early on Friday.

The final line-up of candidates contesting the elections this year has nine hopefuls in the race for the post of president, five each for the posts of vice-president and general secretary, six for the post of joint secretary, and two for the Gender Sensitisation Committee Against Sexual Harassment.

And as the campus prepared for its new set of office-bearers, bets were out on whether All India Students' Association president Mona Das would make a comeback to the top spot once again this year. ``While we are relaxed that the intense campaigning sessions are over and the results will be out soon, there is much anticipation. We are encouraged by the student turnout and happy that the polling went off well. Tonight, however, promises to be a long one with much singing and maybe even some more slogan-shouting rallies,'' said Ms. Das.

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