HT Correspondent
JORHAT, May 1: Independent candidates reportedly backed by political parties with Left leanings swept the Jagannath Barooah Students’ Union elections 2022, leaving the AASU with only five out of the fourteen posts, out which four had been won by AASU uncontested.
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The Independent candidates including that of general secretary Farhina Ahmed, won eight seats, NSUI, one and AASU, five.
The AASU from 2016 to 2021 had won all the posts in the JBC Students’ Union.
The NSUI, the students’ wing of Congress got one seat which was also uncontested.
It may be mentioned that ahead of the polls there were reports of group clashes, with an FIR lodged against AASU for inciting violence and beating up four supporters of the Independent candidates near the JB College Boys Hostel.
The results came as a shock for AASU, the union’s former president and general secretary alleging heavy funding by political parties to ensure the win of their candidates, all of whom had stood as Independents, without showing allegiance to any group.
The former AASU office bearers also said that they were not involved in beating up the other students and this had been a set up to elicit sympathy for the Independent candidates.
AASU further said that they had drifted away from other students of the college during the two years of pandemic and now they would work to come closer to the students and regain their confidence.
A former office bearer of Satra Mukti Sangram Samiti of the JB College admitted that SMSS, the students’ wing of Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti and the SFI had backed the Independents. He said that the NSUI had one seat uncontested and the debating secretary was the only seat which the AASU won in a contest.
