Huge Mandate to United Left Panel in JNUSU Elections
Comrade Dhananjay of AISA elected as JNUSU President
The United Left Panel has emerged victorious in the JNUSU Elections! Comrade Dhananjay, of AISA, won as the President with a total of 2,598 votes in his favour, and a lead of 922 votes. This result is a mandate of the students and youth of this country and a complete rejection of the Modi-led regime!
The United Left Panel, comprising Comrade Dhananjay of AISA as the JNUSU President, Comrade Avijit Ghosh of SFI as the Vice President, Priyanshi Arya of BAPSA as the General Secretary (who was supported by the United Left Panel) and Comrade Mo. Sajid of AISF as the Joint Secretary, form the JNUSU. The candidature of Comrade Swati Singh, the United Left Panel candidate contesting for the post of General Secretary, was cancelled hours before the polling were to start, and it was then that the United Left Panel decided to support the BAPSA candidate Priyanshi, only with a view to defeat the ABVP.
The JNUSU elections taking place after a gap of four years has ignited the spirit of democracy among the students in the university, despite the all-out attack of the ABVP-JNU Admin nexus, who perpetrated violence on campus during SGBM, held the DoS hostage in her office, and cancelled the General Secretary candidature to dent the left alliance, disrupted the Presidential Debate with insensitive remarks against another Presidential candidate and people with disabilities, brought Ranveer Sena on campus and celebrated Brahmeshwar Mukhiya, screened ‘Bastar: The Naxal Story’ on campus, and broke every rule in the book during election campaigning. The students unitedly stood up to the might of the divisive and anti-student forces and elected a JNUSU which will nurture debate, critical thinking and democracy on campus!
The results of these elections is unprecedented in the history of JNUSU, wherein it saw the highest voter turnout of 73%! Of the 7,751 voters on list, 5,656 students came out to vote this time. Dhananjay got 2,598 votes and won by a margin of 922 votes, whereas Avijit Ghosh got 2,409 votes and won by a margin of 927 votes! Priyanshi Arya of BAPSA, who was supported by the United Left Panel, got the highest number of votes of 2,887 and won by a margin of 926 votes! Comrade Sajid, who was elected as the Joint Secretary, won by 508 votes and secured a total of 2,574 votes. 
The BJP Government at the Centre has launched an unprecedented assault on the people of this country. However, as Comrade Dhananjay, the JNUSU President, said in his speech during the Presidential Debate, this was a referendum on the Modi Government and the election was being fought for the farmers fighting against the anti-farm laws, the workers who are fighting for their rights, the Dalits who are fighting for dignity, the students fighting for affordable and equal education, and the youth fighting for dignified employment! He said, “I stand here as a voice of the Dalit landless workers of southern Bihar who bravely fought for their land-economic rights and social dignity, who faced massacres by Ranveer Sena, and, yet, bravely continued their fight against feudal dominance. I stand here as a voice for Comrade Manoj Manzil, a popular Dalit youth leader of CPI-ML, who has been imprisoned by the feudal-fascist government in Bihar. I stand here to tell today’s fascist regime that your jails will not be enough to suppress our voices. We will speak and fight for justice.”
Despite all attempts by the RSS-ABVP-JNU Admin to clamp down and corrode on the democratic space of JNU, where students like Kanhaiya Kumar, Sharjeel Imam, Umar Khalid, Annirban Bhattacharya, and others have been cracked down upon and incarcerated, JNU has stood tall amongst all adversities. The assault on JNU continues with movies like ‘Bastar: The Naxal Story’ and ‘JNU: Jahangir National University’ being made as a propaganda and to term JNU students as ‘anti-national’.
After Batti Lal Bhairwa, who was the JNUSU President in 1996, Dhananjay becomes the second President belonging to the Dalit community in the history of JNUSU. Dhananjay, who hails from Gaya in Bihar, is the son of a retired policeman. Since he was from rural Bihar and studied in Jharkhand, he was inspired by the class and anti-caste struggles led by CPIML, and this formidably helped him join AISA in his days at DU. He has been part of multiple struggles led by AISA, starting from FYUP and ‘red bus’ pass, to ‘Re-Open JNU’ protest, ‘Unlock JNU’ movement, and all other student-led struggles. During the lockdown, he and other AISA activists stood with the JNU workers’ struggle for their rights. From raising his voice for the safe working conditions of sanitation workers and against retrenchment of workers of contractual under the garb of a lockdown, he took part in AISA’s initiative of covid helpdesk to reach out to the migrant workers, slum residents and other informal workers with necessary relief materials, such as ration, safety gear, oxygen cylinder and medicines.
Dhananjay is also a cultural activist who was part of ‘Sangwari’, a Delhi-based cultural troupe, which performed across the country. He is a street theatre artist who performed for the protesting DTC workers, in solidarity with the Pricol workers of Tamil Nadu, and has performed thousands of plays in bastis across Delhi to politicise the working class.
The students and the newly elected JNUSU will now fight to save this campus and are committed to fight for social justice and an inclusive campus, against commercialisation and corporate takeover of education, fight against sexual violence and gender discrimination, and to protect campus democracy.
