The election will be held on September 8

The night-long presidential debate ahead of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Student Union (JNUSU) election was organised at Jawaharlal Nehru University on Wednesday.

The event saw six contestants debate not just on topics related to the university but on issues faced by the country as a whole.

Shabana Ali, the candidate from the Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association, started the proceedings by attacking the outgoing union for not being able to sustain any student movements on campus. She alleged that in the ‘Justice for Najeeb’ movement as well as the opposition to the UGC seat-cut issue, the JNUSU failed to show results. Ms. Ali accused the “united left” panel, comprising of students from AISA, SFI and DSF, of having given up on their ideology to secure votes. “The panel talks about coming together to remove the ABVP from campus. Forget about removing the ABVP from campus, the union could not even remove the flower-pots that have been placed at the freedom square to prevent us from using the space for protests.”

The ABVP candidate Nidhi Tripathi mostly concentrated on campus-related infrastructure issues and said that the ABVP, if voted to form the union, would work towards finding solutions to problems and not just create noise like the previous union did. The ABVP candidate came under attack from the other candidates over the disappearance of student Najeeb in October 2016 after he had an altercation with some students affiliated to the ABVP the previous night.

Aparajitha Raja the candidate from the AISF said that the idea of a public university was under attack by right-wing elements and that this year, over 900 students were not admitted to the university because of the government policies.

The candidate from the united-left panel Gita Kumari said that while the ABVP was hand-in-glove with the anti-student administration of the college, BAPSA spent more time in the past year fighting the JNUSU rather than fighting against the policies of the Vice Chancellor. She said that while the outgoing President lost his PhD scholarship for seeking justice for Najeeb, the assaulters of Najeeb have not been punished. She paid tribute to journalist Gauri Lankesh who was shot dead on Tuesday and said that the students of JNU would continue their struggle to expose the right-wing forces and ensure that her efforts will not be in vain.

Adding an interesting twist to the debates was the speech by an independent candidate Farooque Alam who was a crowd favorite. In a speech full of rhetoric, he lambasted all the political parties on campus for not being sensitive to student issues.

The election will be held on September 8.