In the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) elections, the Left alliance achieved a clean sweep by winning all four central panel seats. Along with this, a record has also been created — three of the four central panel posts have been won by female candidates. Out of the four positions on the central panel, three were secured by women.
The Left student organizations contested as a united alliance comprising AISA (All India Students’ Association), SFI (Students’ Federation of India), and DSF (Democratic Students’ Federation). Aditi Mishra from AISA won the post of President, Gopika from SFI won the post of Vice-President, Sunil from DSF won the post of General Secretary, and Danish Ali from AISA won the post of Joint Secretary. In these elections, both the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and the NSUI (National Students’ Union of India) suffered major defeats.
JNU elections have always been a topic of nationwide discussion. While the Left ideology has largely shrunk across the country, the political atmosphere of JNU has once again turned red. The election results clearly show that the dominance of the Left in the JNU campus is not merely a thing of the past — its presence remains strong even today.
The most remarkable aspect of JNU’s academic and political consciousness is that politics in this university is not confined to voting alone — it lives in every debate and in every student who dares to question. It is also noteworthy that JNU elections have always centered around issue-based politics rather than the image of national political parties.
In 1969, then Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi established JNU with the vision of creating a university in India where research, critical thinking, social justice, and progressive democratic debate would flourish. She named the university after Jawaharlal Nehru, but interestingly, the Congress’s student organization NSUI has managed to win the President’s post only once in the university’s history.
There is no doubt that after the Left, the BJP-affiliated ABVP has been the main challenger and has managed to establish its presence on campus. After 2014, the increasing polarization in national politics was also reflected in JNU, and ABVP expanded its influence. The organization performed impressively by winning several of the 26 councillor seats and even making a clean sweep in some faculties.
Last year, ABVP made a comeback by winning the Joint Secretary post in the JNUSU central panel — a position it had last won in 2015. The Left alliance fought this election with slogans like “Save the Constitution, Save Democracy,” while ABVP emphasized nationalism, development, and campus discipline. Other issues raised during the elections included the increase in the general budget, expansion of the library, and political freedom.
The reality is that the students of this institution have made JNU known across the world through their debates and revolutionary thinking. The Left organizations have maintained a deep grassroots presence on campus, and their activist engagement for student rights has helped them sustain their influence.
JNU has also been at the center of many controversies. In 2015, then JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar was accused of organizing a memorial for terrorist Afzal Guru. Sedition cases were filed against Kanhaiya Kumar and his colleague Shehla Rashid. Another student leader, Umar Khalid, was accused of raising controversial slogans and is also facing trial for allegedly instigating the 2020 Delhi riots; he has been in jail for the last five years. JNU has often drawn controversy for slogans such as “Bharat tere tukde honge” (“India will be broken into pieces”) and “Leke rahenge azadi” (“We will take our freedom”).
Another major attraction of JNU student elections is that JNU offers the most affordable education in the country. Students across India dream of studying at JNU. The university provides them not only with quality education but also the opportunity to understand and engage with different ideologies — and to participate in political activity shaped by those ideas.
This is why the JNU students’ union elections always become a subject of national discussion. Another important reason is that JNU is considered the stronghold of Left ideology, which now survives in only a few states. In addition, JNU serves as a key center for the propagation of this ideology.
The campaigning style in JNU elections is also unique. All Left student organizations conduct their campaigns singing and playing the *daphli* (a traditional hand drum), which becomes a major attraction for students. A presidential debate, similar to that in U.S. presidential elections, is held where candidates present their vision before the students.
This time too, the election centered around the ideological clash between the Left and the Right. Significantly, the entire election process is conducted by students themselves. In this battle of ideologies, the Left has once again come out ahead.
Looking at history, several prominent national leaders have emerged from the JNU Students’ Union — including Sitaram Yechury, Prakash Karat, D. Raja, Annie Raja, Yogendra Yadav, Devi Prasad Tripathi, and Kanhaiya Kumar. Kanhaiya Kumar contested the Lok Sabha elections from the CPI in 2019 and from the Congress last year, though he did not win.
Besides them, India’s current External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, and Subramanian Swamy have also been students of JNU — though they never participated in student union elections.
