The Hindu : New Delhi News : Canvassing on a slow note in DU

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 30, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

Canvassing on a slow note in DU

Staff Reporter

NSUI, ABVP fielding new faces

NEW DELHI: Battling the strict rules against posters in Delhi University, student outfits have found that in this age of text-messaging as a campaign strategy SMS might ensure immediate connections, but not instant recognition with the voters.

With the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad fielding new faces that are still relatively unknown to the students, the first day of the campaign trail for student leaders on Tuesday was largely colourless.

"This was not a problem as all students wanted to see the winning combination when our team came to campaign,'' said NSUI national spokesperson Kuntal Krishna.

While both the parties might make tall claims that their candidates were instantly recognised as they were the `winners', observers offered a different perspective. "The candidates had to introduce themselves or their supporters around them had to tell students who they were. This is because of the lack of posters. The tempo was slow today," said a member of a prominent students' party.

Laying emphasis on fresh talent and student leaders, both NSUI and ABVP have projected their most seasoned candidate for the post of president. A fight between two veteran student women leaders, the tussle for the post of president is a perfect example of women being on top as it is a battle between Amrita Dhawan of NSUI and Gargi Lakhanpal of ABVP.

"We have projected candidates who are not only committed to our ideology, but are student leaders. We wanted to give fresh talent a chance. But all our candidates are senior workers with ABVP," said ABVP Delhi general secretary Nakul Bharadwaj.

Interestingly, both the political parties this year have tried to capitalise on the votes of students from Outer Delhi. NSUI has fielded two candidates from Outer Delhi, while ABVP has the same number. With student elections in the Capital no different from those at the national level, vote bank is an unfortunate reality even at the University level.

Finding support from different quarters, United Students, an independent group contesting elections, has been promised help from IIT Kharagpur Alumni Foundation.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the secretary of the Foundation, Y.P.S. Suri, said: "We will provide them all moral, emotional and physical support. We can promise that IITians will also chip in individually to support this group in campaigning and spreading the world for support to them."

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