By IANS,
New Delhi : Chants of “Lal Salaam” and “Naxalbari” resonated in the air as the All India Students Association (AISA) Saturday swept all top four posts of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU).
Candidates of AISA were elected the president, vice-president, general secretary and joint secretary, Election Committee chairperson Prabodhan Arvind said.
Holding red flags and banners, hundreds of supporters of AISA, associated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, danced and raised pro-Maoist slogans as they celebrated their win.
AISA’s Sucheta De with 2,102 votes became the JNUSU president while Zico Dasgupta of Student Federation of India-All India Student Federation (SFI-AISF) finishing second with 751 votes followed by Mamta Tripathi of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) with 434 votes.
Abhishek Yadav won the vice-president’s post with 1,997 votes followed by SFI-AISF’s Anagha Ingole (1,357 votes). National Student Union of India’s (NSUI) Retika Dutta came third with 548 votes.
JNUSU’s new general secretary Ravi Prakash Singh won with 1,908 votes. Durgesh Tripathi of SFI-AISF came second with 989 votes followed by ABVP’s Manoranjan Mahapatra with 625 votes.
Mohammad Firoz Ahmed won the joint secretary’s post with 1,778 votes followed by Mohd Altamash of SFI-AISF with 1,199 votes.
“This is clear proof that this campus has been changed by AISA. This is a mandate against the establishment, against corruption, against AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act) and against SEZs (Special Economic Zones),” De said.
“We also won 14 of the 16 councillor posts we contested,” an elated De told IANS.
Voting for the union took place March 1 after a gap of over four years.
The Supreme Court had suspended the JNUSU election in 2008, citing violations of the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations on student elections.
In the last election in 2007-08 too AISA won all four main union posts.