Slogans rang out on the streets, students moved in groups towards polling centres, and campaign pamphlets covered stretches of roads and footpaths as voting for the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) elections got underway in North Campus on Friday.
The election-day mood was visible from the metro station to the college gates, with members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), All India Students’ Association (AISA) and Students’ Federation of India (SFI) raising slogans and distributing pamphlets and cards bearing candidates’ names.
Groups of students stood outside colleges asking others to vote for particular candidates, while campaigners moved between colleges. Students also gathered at tea and ice-cream stalls after casting their votes, discussing candidates, comparing their choices and debating what changes could the DUSU elections bring on campus.
First-year students were seen in groups, while selfie booths outside colleges drew several students who stopped to take photographs. For some first-time voters, the election was also their first exposure to the scale of student politics at the university. Several students who had joined the university only around two months ago said their friends influenced them.
Students said infrastructure, fee hikes, menstrual leave and issues related to student accommodation, including concerns following the Satya Niketan incident, were among the issues they considered while voting. Seven people, including students, were killed when a five-storey PG building for boys collapsed in Satya Niketan earlier this month.
A first-year student pursuing BA (Honours) Physics at Kirori Mal College said infrastructure and laboratories were among the issues that mattered to him. “I was influenced by my friends while deciding whom to vote for. We discussed it among ourselves and then decided,” he said
The campaign was also visible on the roads around the university. People travelling in SUVs and other vehicles were seen throwing pamphlets and small cards through sunroofs, while people on motorcycles distributed candidate cards as they moved between colleges. Pamphlets bearing candidates’ names were scattered across roads and campus footpaths.
“People are throwing pamphlets and cards from their cars, but who is going to clean all of this? The roads are littered with them, and even the campus footpaths are covered with pamphlets,” a student said.
Students said ABVP and NSUI had distributed freebies during the campaign, including drinks, chocolates, pizza and hand fans.
In the days before polling, the campaign spilt over into classrooms, students said, with some saying they missed classes because of campaign activity. They said professors sometimes got angry over the disruption and left the classroom.
Outside the polling centres, police and security personnel were deployed and barricades put up around college entrances. Vehicular movement was restricted on several stretches. Students were required to leave their bags and mobile phones outside the polling areas, while digital identity cards were not accepted. Many arrived carrying physical college identity cards and left their phones with friends before entering.
Security checks were carried out at the entrances as students queued to enter the polling centres.
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Amid the campaign material scattered across the area, children from among people living on the streets were seen collecting pamphlets from the roads and footpaths. Some also distributed the material among students and passersby. Outside some colleges, people associated with political parties were seen approaching students and asking about their votes.
For students who had followed campus politics for years, the choices appeared more familiar. For others, particularly those newly arrived from outside Delhi, the day was an introduction to the peculiar ecosystem of a university election — part political contest, part social gathering, and part spectacle unfolding on the streets of North Campus.
