Just after the commencement of new academic session in Delhi University, campuses are gearing for the next student union election. Dates are announced but official nomination and declaration of candidates are yet to happen. The elections will be conducted on 12 September. The University in terms of space is divided into campuses but energy, aspiration, and election enthusiasm are equally evident on each campus. The walls of entire university road right after the university metro station in north campus are colored with posters and banners depicting various names and faces of the potential candidates of chairs.
Delhi University is one largest among other universities in India. The public funded university recognise more than 1 lakh regular students and provide platforms to approx. 2.5 lakh students pursuing informal education. The DU campus is divided into colleges and the election is conducted in each college as well as at university level. There are elected student chairs in colleges as well as office bearers at the university level.
However, the worst part about DUSU election is kind of showman things. The similar kind of people who hail from the privileged background get nominated every year. The muscle power and unaccounted involvement of money corrupts the union election. Campaigns and rallies are done through SUVs. Forget the amount of paper wastage but paintings, slogans and different numeric and alphabetic characters on walls actually make place nasty and messy. There are names painted on bricks, cemented chairs on walls and even on dustbins and footpaths.
The DU elections are known for its poll code violations and time to time there have been many issues raised related to liquor distribution, bribing students, distributing movie tickets and throwing lavish parties to lure students. The upper cap on spending per candidate recommended by Lyngdoh committee is rs.5, 000 while many estimates that expenditure of student organisations reach in crores during the campaign.
I took long kilometers walk to capture some candid shots depicting messy environment during the election in one of the highly reputed university which runs on ‘Tax Payer’ money.
