Voting for the Aligarh Muslim University Students’ Union (AMUSU) took place on October 8. Aligarh Muslim University has two students’ unions and therefore, holds two elections.
Aligarh Muslim University Students’ Union (AMUSU)
Aligarh Muslim University Students’ Union is the union for the main campus of the University. Faizul Hasan, a research scholar from the Sociology department, has been elected as the president. Regional lobbies are quite influential in the AMUSU elections. Hasan hails from Bahraich and was backed by a lobby of Gonda, Basti and Sidharth Nagar. These are places near Bahraich. When asked about his vision for the union, Hasan said, “My main motive is the upliftment of AMU students. I would like to bring programs so that students have better job opportunities.” Nadeem Ansari from Jamalpur and Nabeel Usmani from Azamgarh have been elected as the vice president and secretary respectively. Usmani’s focus will be to fight for the minority status of AMU and setup a training and placement office of AMU at New Delhi. Also, in a first, three female students were elected to the cabinet of the AMUSU. The voting turnout for AMUSU was 70.48%.
Women’s College Students’Union (WCSU)
The Women’s College of AMU, which comprises of a few undergraduate courses, has a separate union known as Women’s College Students’ Union. Of the 2500 students of the college, 68% cast their vote. The top three posts of the union were bagged by students from BA courses. Nagma Sharif became the president with 766 votes. Sharif’s focus will be on both hostelers and day scholars. She said, “There are lots of problems faced by hostelers. I will try to resolve them. I will also try to get the classrooms renovated.” For the post of vice president, there was a close fight between Farheen Sherwani and Mehak Fatima. There was a difference of only 84 votes. Farheen Sherwani became the vice president. The post of secretary was bagged by Utba Israr. Besides this, out of 15 candidates, 8 were elected to WCSU’s cabinet.
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