In a dramatic turn of events this morning, the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) clinched the top two Delhi University Students’ Union posts. While both the NSUI and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP)—which had won two seats each in the DUSU panel—may indulge in victorious chest-thumping, it was the ‘None Of The Above’ (NOTA) option which has caught everyone’s eye. Of the total votes polled for all four posts, NOTA alone got 29,770 votes.

Delhi University only introduced NOTA as an option last year – when 17,712 people opted for it. In 2017, there was a 60 per cent increase in that number. In fact, minutes into counting on Wednesday morning, the NOTA option was almost half as many votes as had gone to ABVP- NSUI combined. The post for president did, however, have more people plonk for it as compared to that for the vice-president and joint secretary.

At one point, the NOTA option and the All India Students’ Association (AISA) started recording more votes than both the ABVP and NSUI. The trends which were in favour of the NSUI, that is, up until they were leading on all the posts (except secretary) was due to NOTA.

By the end of the count, it was clear, NOTA was a game changer. NSUI did #TakeBackDU from ABVP, as it promised during their campaign, but with the help of those who had rejected them as well.
It isn’t incorrect to say NSUI owes its victory to NOTA.

NOTA votes polled for each post: President – 5162, VP – 7689, Secretary -7891 and Joint Secretary – 9028.

Interestingly, for the president and joint secretary’s posts, NOTA had more votes than the Left students’ body, AISA. Without spending a penny and campaigning, “the rejection vote” on all posts ranged between 9.45 to 16.53 per cent.

A clarion call to campus parties, that a campus known for low voter turnout came out in large numbers on September 12, just to vote against them. This can be attributed to the disenchantment felt by many students to the money-muscle style of politics practised by both the ABVP and NSUI and an outright rejection of ABVP following the Ramjas College violence from earlier in the year.

This year, candidates have been seen brazenly violating the Lyngdoh committee guidelines laid down for campaigning. Littering Delhi roads with their hoardings and posters, throwing pizza parties, and organising concerts to lure young voters have been some of the strategies employed by this year’s candidates.

For the rashtrawadi ABVP, this is a wake-up call. The NOTA numbers are indicative of a rejection of the kind politics that the saffron students’ body indulged in last year.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s student body had dominated the DUSU polls for four years in a row. However, last year, ABVP was constantly in the news for all the wrong reasons. Right after a victory in the DUSU polls, then newly-elected president Amit Tanwar was seen with a group of men flashing guns inside the DUSU office in North Campus. Several media reports of ABVP cadres misbehaving with DU faculty kept surfacing. This peaked with the violence in Ramjas College on February 22. Hundreds of students came out on the roads – inside and outside the campus – to protest against a students’ organisation. However, surprising no one, the ABVP-led DUSU dubbed these protests’ as part of a “leftist” agenda to cover up their “anti-national” activities on the campus. ABVP responded to these rallies with a Tiranga March – a blatant attempt to change the Ramjas narrative into a “nationalist” versus “anti-national” battle.

But, the students have spoken. By displaying just how many of them have little or no faith in the student bodies, it’s clear that they now need to work towards connecting with the campus than merely feuding with each other.