NEW DELHI: The `red' camp continues to maintain its sway over the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union with the Students' Federation of India (SFI) and the All India Student Federation of India (AISF) combine and All India Students' Association (AISA) bagging two posts each on the central panel in the elections whose results were declared on Saturday.

Splitting the panel evenly this time round, the posts of president and joint secretary went to SFI-AISF's Dhananjay Tripathi and Jyotsna Singh, respectively, while AISA's Tyler Williams and Sandeep Singh grabbed the posts of vice-president and general secretary.

The first foreign student to win a place on the central panel, Mr. Williams has made history of sorts on the campus. He emerged as the most popular candidate polling the highest number of votes: 1,076.

Mr. Tripathi polled 909 votes to win the presidential seat. His closest rival was Awadesh from AISA, while Sonika Tyagi from Youth for Equality (YFE) emerged third in the race for the post.

The results are being seen as a victory of the pro-reservation forces against the anti-reservation lobby. With the YFE, which spearheaded the anti-quota movement, contesting the elections for the first time this year and polling a sizeable number of votes, the JNUSU election results have once again established that the campus is always "politically" correct.

"YFE has emerged as a force in JNU. But the election results show that JNU has no room for casteist forces. We are going to push for the 27 per cent reservation and 54 per cent increase in seats on the campus. Since there will be many more students on the campus now, we want to ensure that they get the infrastructure they need," said Mr. Tripathi.

Judging by the votes the YFE polled, it might not be a winning force but it certainly has found support on the campus in a short spell of time. Overtaking even the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) - which usually provides the strongest opposition to the Left - for an outfit fighting the elections for the first time, it has gained considerable ground.

While the results of the JNUSU elections might have reinforced the `red' domination of the campus, they have come as a huge blow to the ABVP, which has been struggling to make its presence felt on the central panel for four years now and has been the biggest loser in these elections. The National Students' Union of India (NSUI) has failed once again to make its presence felt on the campus.

"The ABVP did not actively take a pro-reservation stand. There were some elements among their supporters who turned to the YFE. But the pro-reservationists have outnumbered the anti-reservationists numerically. And with the students voting against the anti-reservation plank, the YFE will get further marginalised," said the new vice-president Mr. Williams.

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