JNU students union panel says polls delayed till further notice

JNU student elections are on hold due to violence against election committee members, disrupting the process amid tensions between student organizations.

The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students union election committee (EC), formed ahead of the student elections, released a notification on Friday saying that the student election process has been put on hold till further notice in light of alleged violence against EC members by members of several student organisations.

EC said that the final list of candidates has also been put on hold and that the election process will resume only after safety of EC members has been ensured. (HT Archive)

The election process this year has been hitting bumps from the very beginning. The final list of candidates, which was scheduled to be displayed on Wednesday, was postponed to Thursday. But violence on campus regarding the extension of nomination withdrawal window further delayed the process and the list was not released by Friday.

The notification released by EC, as seen by HT, said, “This is to inform all concerned that recent incidents of violence and vandalism at EC office and on EC members on 17/04/2025 and 18/04/2025 have seriously disrupted the election process. In light of a major lapse of security and the environment of hostility, fear and insecurity following the violence, it has been decided to put the entire election process on hold.”

EC said that the final list of candidates has also been put on hold and that the election process will resume only after safety of EC members has been ensured.

“The election committee also demands that the administration take appropriate action against the perpetrators of violence. It is unfortunate that despite EC’s continuous requests to administration for providing enough security, the administration has not responded in satisfactory manner,” the notification said.

During the nomination withdrawal window on Thursday, fights had broken out allegedly between members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and the All India Students’ Association (AISA) over the time extension for nomination withdrawal.

Several ABVP members said the Left has not been able to form an alliance this year, which has been the root cause in trying to delay the process.

An ABVP member requesting anonymity said, “Usually AISA puts forth their candidate for the post of president but this time there were differences between AISA and Students’ Federation of India (SFI) regarding who will fight for the president’s post.”

ABVP in a statement released on Friday said, “The artificial crisis that has been created regarding the student union election process at JNU is an unprecedented and highly condemnable event… the JNU EC, working under the pressure of the so-called Left United, not only disrupted the election process but also carried out unexpected and unconstitutional actions such as revisions and withdrawal of the candidate list even after the final date for nominations had passed.”

Meanwhile, several Left members, alleging that the violence was incited by ABVP, called upon JNU students to join a gathering late Friday evening in solidarity with the EC.

This time, AISA and the Democratic Students’ Front (DSF) have declared an alliance, while the AISA candidate for president, Nitish Kumar, told HT on Thursday, “SFI and AISA have not been able to form an alliance this time.”

The election schedule that had been released said that school general body meetings (GBM) were expected to start from Thursday and continue till next Monday. The presidential debate was supposed to happen on April 23. The polling and counting were scheduled for April 25 and results were supposed to be released by April 28. However, currently, there is no clarification on when all this will happen.