DUSU election: NSUI’s defeat leaves Congress facing tough questions

The Congress party may see in the overwhelming response to Rahul Gandhi’s Chhatron ki Goonj rallies hope of its growing appeal among young voters but the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) election result has, yet again, shown that Rahul’s personal popularity offers no panacea for the organisational rot that plagues his party.

On Saturday (September 19), the Congress party’s student wing, the NSUI, lost all four DUSU posts for which elections were held the previous day. The BJP’s student arm, the ABVP, managed to retain its hold on the posts of DUSU president, secretary and joint secretary while the post of the union’s vice president was bagged by Deepanshu Shokeen, who had entered the poll fray as an independent candidate after being denied a ticket by the NSUI.

Candidate selection fuels blame

That the NSUI’s rout came hours before Rahul addressed the fifth edition of his Chhatron ki Goonj rally at the Indore’s Bharat Jodo Maidan and at a time when his party, alongside Opposition allies and outfits such as the Cockroach Janata Party, has been relentlessly attacking the BJP over issues ailing the education system would make the DUSU loss sting all the more.

Also read | Congress rejig sets new norm: 'Neglected' loyalists rewarded, seniority not a shield

The Congress can take some heart from the fact that the ABVP’s 3-1 victory wasn’t a one-sided affair as it had been on many occasions since 2014 but a closely contested one (see box). Even a cursory look at the break-up of votes polled by candidates for the four posts showed considerable anger against the saffron party. It is, thus, for the Congress office-bearers involved in drawing the campaign strategy to explain to the party high command why the NSUI failed to cash in on a palpably anti-BJP (or ABVP) sentiment among the over 60,000 Delhi University students who voted in the election.

Congress sources blamed the defeat squarely on “leaders responsible for candidate selection”. A national office-bearer of the NSUI told The Federal that Shokeen, who won the vice president’s post with a record margin of over 13,000 votes as an independent candidate and Samajwadi Chhatra Sabha nominee Vishesh Yadav, who finished second in the contest for the post of secretary, were both “NSUI members who were forced to contest the election as rebels because we denied them tickets to please certain leaders”.

Another party leader, who served as DUSU president in the early 2000s when NSUI dominated varsity polls, said leaders responsible for ticket distribution were “repeatedly told by many of us who still work closely with NSUI, despite having moved to the AICC, that Deepanshu and Vishesh were winning candidates, but we were overruled.”

When warnings went unheeded

Fingers are being pointed at NSUI national president Vinod Jakhar, Kanhaiya Kumar, the AICC in-charge for NSUI, and AICC headquarters in-charge Manish Chatrath, whose son Vir Chatrath was the candidate for the DUSU vice president’s post, for the defeat.

Sources said the decision to deny Shokeen and Yadav a spot on the NSUI panel and to field Vir for the vice president’s post had triggered instant dissent not just within the NSUI but also among AICC leaders.

Also read | Small states, big headaches for Congress in Himachal and Goa

“Anyone aware of the situation in DU knew that Deepanshu and Vishesh were a sure win (sic) and denying them tickets spoilt the entire campaign. Vir only got the ticket because his father is close to Rahul and Priyanka and is also the AICC headquarters in-charge,” said an NSUI functionary.

Another source said the moment AICC declared the NSUI candidates, the leadership was informed that “we are making a huge mistake”. “A meeting was called in which KC Venugopal (the all-powerful AICC general secretary-organisation), Jakhar, Kanhaiya and Manish Chatrath were all present. The facts were placed before them but Kanhaiya and Jakhar told Venugopal that they personally guarantee victory of the entire panel,” a party leader present in the said meeting told The Federal.

Results validate dissenting voices

On Saturday, as counting trends began trickling in, fears expressed by those who dissented with the party’s choices began coming true. Though Meena gave a tough fight to the ABVP’s Yash Dabas and led in at least five rounds of counting, the other three candidates crashed out.

“If we had fielded Shokeen and Yadav, I am absolutely certain that our entire panel would have won the polls. If you add the votes polled by our official candidates and our rebels, you’ll understand the widespread anger against the BJP and ABVP among students but we failed to cash in on it because of the big ego of those who decided the tickets. Vir’s candidature was the worst because students saw it as the party ignoring a genuinely deserving candidate like Shokeen to accommodate a dynast with no influence; the result also proves that,” said a former DUSU office-bearer from the NSUI.

Poll setback deepens Cong worries

With the ABVP, and indeed the BJP, predictably flaunting the DUSU win as a vote of confidence from Gen-Z and the youth in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party’s leadership, the damage to the Opposition’s campaign against the ruling party on issues concerning this very demographic goes way beyond ordinary campus politics. For the Congress, that should be a major cause of concern, as the BJP is bound to weaponise the DUSU poll result to mock Rahul’s Chhatron ki Goonj, in particular, and to neutralise attacks from other Opposition parties and outfits such as the CJP on the Centre shoddy record on education reforms.

Also read | CWC meet: Congress to take ‘Chhatron Ki Goonj’ campaign to 800 cities

Despite the crushing loss, Congress sources said those responsible for the defeat had quickly got busy shifting the blame. “Those close to Kanhaiya are now running a whisper campaign blaming Jakhar for wrong candidate selection; the Jakhar camp is alleging that Kanhaiya is an incompetent, self-absorbed in-charge who only listens to and promotes a close coterie of Left-leaning members whom he has known since his days at JNU... Instead of accountability, this is what we have after losing the most important student body election in the national capital,” said an AICC general secretary, who was among the senior party leaders roped in “at the last minute” to campaign for the NSUI panel.