The Delhi University Students’ Union (Dusu) elections seem to have gone a step ahead than mainstream politics in the use of stratagems for prominence as many candidates have added weird-sounding initials to their names to appear on the top of the ballot paper.
Many candidates have added “AA”, “AAA” or “A.A” before their names and even got a new I-card issued in the name.
Two of the 12 candidates for the president’s post have added prefixes. The ABVP candidate added “AA” to his name and is now named AA Aman Awana, hoping to be on the top of the ballot paper. But the NSUI candidate went a step ahead and added “A.A.” to be named as A.A. Vishal Chaudhary.
Interestingly, as the university issues a computerised ballot number, “A.A.” figures above “AA” and the NSUI candidate got ballot number 1, followed by the ABVP candidate.
Similarly, four contenders for the post of vice-president and two each for secretary and joint secretary have changed names.
A candidate requesting anonymity said, “Some students aren’t well informed about candidates while some others do not bother. These students go for the first name on the ballot.”
Dusu election officials do not have any issue with the students’ name change. “The students deliberately change their names legally prior to the election and file their nomination papers. We do not have any problem with that,” said Dusu polls chief returning officer Prof. D.S. Rawat.
These candidates start the name change process almost a month ahead. “Our candidate first filed an affidavit in a court for the name change. As a procedure, the same information was published in two national dailies before he filed his nomination,” said ABVP media convenor Saket Bahuguna.
Dusu election is scheduled on September 13.