The Left-affiliated Students Federation of India and All India Student's Association emerged victorious in the Jawaharlal Nehru University student's union elections once again, winning the four top posts braving a tough fight from the Youth for Equality, a new outfit that spearheaded the anti-quota stir.
The posts of president and joint secretary were won by the Students Federation of India, the students' wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) while AISA of the CPI (Marxist-Leninist) won the polls for vice president and secretary.
SFI's Dhananjay Tripathi is the new president, while American national Tyler Walker Williams of AISA has won the vice-president's post. Williams, incidentally, is the first foreign national to have won in the JNU polls. Sandeep Singh of AISA has won the polls for the post of secretary, while SFI's Jyotsna is the new joint secretary.
The YFE, a youth forum that was at the forefront of the anti-reservation agitation, emerged as a surprise element in the polls, giving a tough fight to the AISA and SFI and coming second after them for the polls for three of the four top posts.
Last year, the AISA had won only the president's post, while SFI had won the other three seats. The polls, voting for which took place on Thursday, threw up dismal results for the student's groups belonging to the ruling Congress-backed National Students Union of India and the main opposition BJP-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, with the two organisations figuring nowhere among the top vote-getters for the four important posts.
According to the results announced on Saturday, SFI has won ten councillors' posts, ABVP seven, YFE six, AISA two and NSUI one
