I don’t really think many students of DU care about about elections. Last year the turnout was only 44‚ÑÖ and the thought DUSU election are going on since 62 years the highest turnout was only 55% in 2006. Even if the majority poses an indifferent outlook towards elections it won‚Äôt be wrong to say that everyone is exposed to the campaigning antics that continue since the beginning of new terms. The poster and pamphlet wars (Priyanka Chopra one should get a point for creativity), auto expos ( the Hummers, Scorpios and cool Jeeps), not-so-subtle attempts at buying votes by distributing everything from baby lips to movie tickets and general annoyance is something everyone is familiar with. Such a grand and competitive display of muscle-money power and blatant violation of Lyngdoh Committee recommendations is very visible. According to Lyngdoh Committee recommendations the promotional budget of election campaign should not exceed five thousand rupees. Let‚Äôs laugh at this.
The posters say, ‘All the best, Priyanka 4 Emmys’. Priyanka Chawri’s ballot number for the DUSU election scheduled for September 9 is ‘4’. ABVP national media convener Saket Bahuguna said that they had not put up the hoarding. Asked why the posters were mostly around DU and different colleges, he called it a “coincidence”.
A+ in Geography. 
Chai Pe Charcha?
Freebies. 
Anyway, I know most of us remain uninvolved and unconcerned about politics and think that it doesn’t affect us, but this is such a BIG misconception because politics is indispensable to our lives and believe it or not affects us all the time.
What if something like FYUP is introduced,funds cut into half or seats reduced. We have examples where its student politics that have resisted such arbitrary orders, the latest one being one year relaxation in the seat cut in Law Faculty and the Occupy UGC Movement. Even in history, there have multiple examples of how Student Politics have always affected policy making. We also have many examples of student leaders making it great in National Politics. Since we are clearly in need of good politicians shouldn’t we support good leaders at university levels itself?
A section of people believe that polls and elections are nothing but a distraction from academic life according to me this is overly pessimistic view of politics because all decisions including those that affect the education sector are made by the government. Hence the government must take student’s wishes in account and a democratically elected students union is the best representation.
The whole point is we as individuals or collectively as student community should be more responsible and VOTE for fair and capable candidates even when they don’t have posters screaming their names because when politics decides our future then we must decide our politics.
9th September 2016 was a very important day and the total voter turnout as per media reports was just 36%.
