Prefixing names is now history at North Campus

Many candiates would add 'A' or 'AAA' to their names to elevate ballot numbers.FIle Photo: Sushil Kumar Verma

Over the years, students contesting the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) elections have filed nominations prefixing 'A' or 'AAA' before their names in a bid to elevate their ballot number.

Getting their names to the top of the list offers an unfair advantage in a ballot paper that has 20 to 30 names listed in alphabetical order.

This year is the first time that none of the candidates resorted to this practice.

In a notification dated December 16, 2015, DU had said that following High Court orders students will have to use the name they used to take admission into the university. Despite the November 14, 2014 judgement of the high court, which banned prefixing of alphabets before names, last year’s DUSU president Satinder Awana had written his name as “aaa Satinder Awana”.

AISA claims victory

The All India Students’ Union, which was the appellant in the case, said that the practice becoming history was a major victory for them. According to the AISA, it was after two years of continuous campaigns, protests and legal struggle that the ban was implemented in the ongoing DUSU elections.

Kawalpreet Kaur, AISA’s presidential candidate, said, “It is a major victory after two years of struggle. It was a shameful practice that put DU in bad light. After the roll-back of FYUP, change in grading system of CBCS and stalling the cutdown on seats in Law faculty, this is another victory for AISA. This will bolster our chances.”

In a press meet, the AISA said that for many years now ABVP, NSUI and others had continued with the practice of adding ‘AAA’, ‘...aaa’ as a prefix to gain undue advantage.