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A rather strange battle of the ballot

By Pranab Dhal Samanta

NEW DELHI, NOV. 6. Hotshot campaigners, hardly any listeners; colourful posters, colourless messages; big turnouts for eminent visiting speakers, lack of quorum at an open house with contestants.... Riddled with these contradictions, the run-up to this year's Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union elections has upset many cosy presumptions about JNU's famed political ethos.

To begin with, the collective pressure exerted by most student outfits to extend the campaign period now defies logic. ''After all that hoopla, these parties did not try anything different. There was an unnecessary break in momentum because of Diwali and in the end it only prolonged the agonising wait for us,'' laments a senior student.

In these couple of weeks, not a single issue was brought under sharp focus. Ask student leaders and they blame one another for failing to liven up the debate. Yet neither of them moved beyond the realm of tutored ideological utterances. Here too, as an old-timer puts it, the political link between ideology and issues of the day like Gujarat, 9/11, or even daily campus problems was missing.

Interestingly, the election committee left no stone unturned to provide the paraphernalia. More tents, more space for posters and public address systems were there in abundance this year, but the contestants failed to cash in.

''We did our best but still attendance was thin at the University General Body meeting. So much so that some teachers went ahead and held classes as students were unwilling to take part in election activities,'' rues an election committee member. #Former student leaders on the campus say the problem may be apparent during elections but has its roots in the way politics is conducted throughout the year. ''Unlike in the past, senior students no longer convene serious political discussions. And when they do want to make it serious, they get an old-timer like me to fill in,'' says former student leader and now teacher Kamal Mitra Chenoy.

As canvassing ended on Wednesday night with the traditional presidential debate, many on the campus admitted that while the symbols of JNU's political culture remain, the spirit is dying.

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