The students’ body polls for Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) were conducted today, Friday, March 22 on the university campus and the results are expected to be announced on Sunday, March 24.

This year, the right-wing students' group Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) nominated Umesh Chandra Ajmeera for President, Arjun Anand for General Secretary, Deepika Sharma for Vice President and Govind Dangi for Joint Secretary.

Speaking to EdexLive, ABVP’s presidential candidate Umesh Chandra Ajmeera said that the two prominent issues that the students are facing are fellowships and infrastructural development.

“As for the fellowships, firstly, the students receiving the fellowships don’t get it on time and for those who get it, the fellowship is extremely meagre and insufficient,” Umesh expressed.

An increase in Merit-cum-Means (MCM) scholarships and non-NET fellowships is another cause that ABVP will work on, he added.

Speaking about the security challenges on campus, the ABVP member expressed that the JNU campus has become a hub for “anti-national activities” in the recent past, making it one of the biggest challenges for student leaders.

“We want to develop world-class facilities with the existing infrastructure. We aim to establish Academic Block-2 and also set up a library that meets international standards. Similar to the Barak hostel, we aim to establish six new hostels on the campus,” Umesh added.

Improving the hostels and infrastructure on the campus will be an agenda for the right-wing students’ group, he added.