SFI leader barred from students’ union poll at DU’s LSR, for ‘concealing’ political position

SFI claims LSR unit president Meenakshi Yadav was never asked to declare political affiliation, but current Students' Union president says it gave her advantage of social capital.

File photo of Lady Sri Ram College | LSR website

New Delhi: Meenakshi Yadav, a 21-year-old student of Delhi’s Lady Sri Ram College (LSR) has been barred by the college authorities from contesting for the position of students’ union president, allegedly over a controversy relating to her political affiliation. Yadav is the president of the LSR unit of the the Students’ Federation of India — the students’ chapter of the Communist Party of India.

The LSR students’ union is an elected body, responsible for coordination between the college and its students. It is guided by a pool of staff advisers, under the leadership of principal Dr Suman Sharma. The union has four posts, president, cultural secretary, general secretary and treasurer.

Election for the post of president is to be held Thursday 21 April, and Yadav’s candidature was rejected Tuesday.

In a statement on the second-year journalism student being barred from contesting the elections, released the same day, the SFI alleged the reason given by the LSR election core committee — which conducts the polls — was “taken in light of the complaints received by the committee regarding concealment of material information of holding a position of leadership in a political organisation at the time of nomination for presidential post, Students Union, Lady Shriram College’”.

The SFI went on to say “the LSR administration had not demanded any information pertaining to the position held by the candidate in political student organisations, neither was there any formal instruction to do the same at any point. There was no such question in the form as well. It can therefore not be labelled as ‘concealment’.”

Defending the decision to bar Yadav from contesting the students’ union election, Karthika Sanjeev — current president of the union and a member of the election core committee — said ”the political affiliation or membership is not the problem, but when one is holding a position of power in any such student organisation, then it gives them social capital, which other contestants do not have”.

“We would not have had this problem had this been disclosed to us at the time of nomination,” Sanjeev said.

‘Not hiding anything’

ThePrint has accessed the 2022 LSR election guidelines and found no clause there which requires a contestant to declare other positions held in any other organisations, or declare her political affiliations.

ThePrint has also accessed the Delhi University Students’ Union guidelines — available on its website — and found no such clause there either.

Yadav too denied knowledge of any such condition. “I filled the form weeks ago and it did not require me to fill in my political affiliation. We even checked the Students’ Union charter and it does not mention this. It is public knowledge that I am a member of the SFI. There is nothing that I am hiding,” she told ThePrint.

The timing of the announcement cancelling her nomination — just two days before the elections are scheduled to be held — has upset Yadav especially.

ThePrint reached a professor, who is also a member of the election core committee, for a comment over the phone, but she only said “the decision was taken by the core committee and I can not comment on it”.

(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)