The Hindu : New Delhi News : JNU gearing up for the battle of the ballot

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Thursday, Oct 19, 2006
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New Delhi

JNU gearing up for the battle of the ballot

Jawaharlal Nehru University's most active season has just begun with elections round the corner. While most other universities are in a holiday mood, students on the politically charged JNU campus are getting ready for a bitter battle of ideology. And the race began with the usual dose of controversy as there was some "confusion" over who would take over as the chairperson of the election committee this year.

Responsible for framing the election code of conduct, the election committee also decides the schedule for polling. "No one wants to take over as the chairperson of the election committee. People are afraid that they will come in the line of fire by the parties if they lose. The tradition is that the JNU Students' Union usually hands over the charge to chairperson of the committee. But there was no chairperson chosen till late Wednesday evening. The other issue is that most of the members of the committee are all new and have had no experience with elections," said a student leader.

While outgoing vice-president Dhananjay denies the rumour and claims that this is routine, a member of the election committee did admit that there was a "crisis''.

"Netaji Abhinandan, who served as chairperson last year, declined to take over this year at first. He had some personal problems. But now he has agreed to shoulder the responsibility and is expected to be elected,'' revealed an election committee member.

Mr. Abhinandan is a Ph.D. student at the School of International Studies and seems to have had a good track record conducting elections on the campus.

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In keeping with the spirit of "Gandhigiri", the Delhi University Students' Union has sanctioned Rs.10,000 from its budget for celebration of 100 years of Satyagraha.

"We have been promised all the help that we will need from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to organise any seminars or programmes that we might want to hold,'' says DUSU president Amrita Dhawan.

Apart from honouring Mahatma Gandhi, DUSU has also sanctioned money for self-defence workshops for girls as well as a placement cell. It also plans to set up a Legal Cell and a Little Delhi Police Cell. "Interested students will be issued a card and they will help the police in case there is a local problem. The idea is to give students some exposure to the working of the police,'' says Ms. Dhawan.

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The JNU chapter of Youth for Equality (YFE) -- the forum of medicos, engineers and other students who were opposed to the Government's decision to extend reservation to Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in institutions of higher education -- has said that the Supreme Court's strong views against the Centre's proposal for extension of reservation without having any specific data in place was a victory for them at the legal level.

Alleging that Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had misled the country on the basis of fake and false data of the Mandal Commission, the YFE has demanded that both should resign.

They said the Supreme Court hadstalled what was going to be another "big forgery in the name of social justice".

"The Court found that the Government was framing a law for the welfare of the so-called OBC population without even knowing their numbers," said a YFE representative.

Mandira Nayar

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