JNU Students Union election result: Left wins all four posts

The United Left Alliance has succeeded in winning the JNU students polls’ today, after it has clinched victory in the post of president, vice president, general secretary and joint secretary. N Sai Balaji has been elected as President, he won with a margin of over 1,000 votes, whereas Sarika Chaudhary won the post of Vice President with a higher margin of over 1500 votes.

Aejaz Ahmed Rather and Amutha Jayadeep are elected as the new General Secretary and Joint Secretary respectively.

N Sai Balaji, who has been elected as President earned 2,151 when he defeated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad's (ABVP) Lalit Pandey was only able to garnered 972 votes. The vice-president elects Sarika Chaudhary defeated ABVP's Geeta Sri by 1,579 votes.

This year's left crusade began in JNU when Left students groups like Students Federation of India (SFI), All India Students' Federation (AISF), the Democratic Students' Federation (DSF) and All India Students' Association (AISA) had joined hands to fight against the ABVP which is a students' wing of RSS.

The counting process, which started on Friday, was blemished with allegations of rigging and had to be stopped for over 14 hours on Saturday. The ABVP had purported that the Election Committee was attempting to rig the polls.

RSS leaders allegedly barged in the counting Centre around 3 am Saturday and tried to seized ballot papers. They accused that the counting was started without the presence of their polling agent.

EC chairperson Himanshu Kulshrestha said, “The counting process, which had begun yesterday (September 14) at 10 pm has been suspended due to forcibly entering into the counting venue and attempt to snatch away sealed ballot boxes as well as ballot papers from our counting centres. This was in addition to intimidation and violence on our EC, including on our female members led by a Presidential and a Joint Secretary candidate,”

Besides, the United Left Alliance and ABVP, candidates from National Students' Union of India, the Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students Association and Independents also contested the election.

According to the News agency PTI the voter turnout in this year's election was the highest in the past six years was 67.8 per cent. More than 5,000 students cast votes on Friday.