Students vote against FYUP in a referendum conducted in DU

Updated on: Friday, August 23, 2013

Out of the 11,556 students who voted in the 'FYUP referendum' conducted in Delhi University colleges on Thursday, 10,519 students said 'no' to FYUP. The voter turnout was even better than DU Students' Union elections, considering the referendum covered only a quarter of DU.

While 101 votes were invalid, 936 favoured of the new undergraduate programme. The referendum, a first of its kind in DU, was conducted by a left leaning students' body. The voting started at 10am and the ballot boxes were placed in 15 colleges across DU.

However, the voting was "forcibly" stopped at 12 noon, two hours earlier than the schedule, at many places. "The first hour of voting went off without any disruption. But college authorities from Sri Venkateshwara, Satyawati and Kirori Mal College asked the students to stop the process. Later police arrived and stopped the voting completely at 12 noon. The college authorities confiscated our ballot boxes as well," said Sandeep Singh, president, All India Students' Association. Hindu College students were also stopped from voting.

After the police stopped the referendum at various places, the students gathered at the Arts Faculty in North Campus and staged a demonstration. "This transparent and most peaceful exercise of direct democracy has alarmed the DU administration and the vice-chancellor so much that they sent college principals and Delhi Police at several places to snatch the ballot boxes and remove the polling booths," said Sunny Kumar, a student activist.

According to Uma Malhaar, a teacher with IP College, "DU security and Delhi police misbehaved with teachers and student volunteers and forcibly stopped the referendum at all colleges in north campus. The referendum got a huge response as thousand of students across DU participated".

Students vote against FYUP in a referendum conducted in DU

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