In the ongoing student body polls at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), the United Left Alliance aims to focus on fee hikes, scholarship cuts and women’s safety on campus.
The United Left Alliance, comprising left-backed student organisations including All India Students' Association (AISA), Democratic Students' Federation (DSF), Students' Federation of India (SFI) and the All India Students’ Federation (AISF), has won the last four consecutive Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) elections and has been in power since the academic year 2016-17.
This time, the student group’s manifesto focuses on the increasing sexual violence and verbal abuse cases on the campus, pushing for the reinstatement of the Gender Sensitisation Committee against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH), said Dhananjay, the Left alliance’s presidential candidate.
“The Merit-cum-Means (MCM) scholarship has been set at Rs 2,000 for the last 13 years while the mess fee has been increasing with time. Our major demands include that the amount should be increased to Rs 5,000 at least so the students can pay their mess fees. It is also important to note that non-National Eligibility Test (NET) fellowships like Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) scheme have been discontinued,” Dhananjay said.
Dhananjay is a member of AISA and a PhD scholar at the School of Arts and Aesthetics at JNU.
Another vision for the left student outfits is to oppose the communal division being created on campus.
“ABVP is resorting to physical violence, creating an atmosphere of fear on campus. Our mates who studied with us, just because they spoke up about the Constitution and their Constitutional Right to Expression were jailed. We are fighting JNUSU elections to oppose that,” Dhananjay added.
Along with Dhananjay, the Left Unity has nominated SFI’s Avijit for Vice-President, DSF’s Priyanshi for General Secretary and Mohammed Sajid from AISF for the post of Joint Secretary in the JNUSU polls.
Earlier, Swati Singh from DSF was nominated for the General Secretary by the left alliance however, her candidature was cancelled yesterday, few hours before the polling.