The Election Committee canceled the nomination of Swati Singh, the United Left Panel’s candidate for general secretary, only hours before the student body elections at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on Friday, March 22, 2022, were set to begin. In a Friday morning letter, she referred to the action as “unfair” and requested that the Election Committee rescind the seat and hold fresh elections.
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NOMINATION OF LEFT CANDIDATE CANCELLED
She was expelled from the university in 2023, but the High Court later overturned the decision. She asserted on Friday that the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) had written to the authorities before the decision was made. The EC chairperson was contacted by The Hindu; as of right now, there has been no response.
“It has come to my notice that the JNUSU Election Committee has issued a public notice canceling my candidature for the post of General Secretary,” she said in an early Friday morning letter to the chairwoman. This warning was sent out on March 22 at 2:00 AM, or just seven hours before polls opened.
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She allegedly mistreated female security guards, leading to her being rusticated and labeled as “out of bounds” by the institution in 2023. Her chances of running for office were revived when the rustication decision was overturned by the High Court last month. In her letter, she also stated that canceling a candidate on election day was egregiously unjust to the voters.
“I do not even have the time to go to court as elections are ongoing,” she remarked on Friday morning. The ABVP asked people to vote for the party instead of the left if they wanted to vote for “naari Shakti” yesterday, posting a video of the event for which Swati had been rusticated. The United Left Panel will present a different applicant for the post in the interim.
COMPLAINT AGAINST THE LEFT CANDIDATE BY ABVP
Days after the ABVP had written to the authorities about the same, the cancellation occurred. Vikas Patel, the secretary of the ABVP JNU branch, complained in writing to the dean of students on March 19 that she was ineligible to run for office because of “pending proctorial fines.” The complaint stated, “It has been discovered that she is the subject of proctorial penalties. By the guidelines established by the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations (LCR), an individual who is the subject of proctorial fines is not permitted to run for office. By the LCR, kindly confirm this with the proctor’s office and withdraw Swati Singh’s candidacy.
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In a statement released on Friday, the United Left Panel denounced the withdrawal of her nomination. Instead, Priyanshi Arya has been nominated by the panel to run for the post of general secretary.
