ThePrint ·
Education
Less ‘Jai Shri Ram’, more Fire NOCs—Satya Niketan tragedy has rewritten DUSU campaign
DUSU election is all about hostels after Satya Niketan collapse. ABVP's 'A' now means Awas.
New Delhi: Delhi University student elections are usually a battle waged along party lines: nationalism for the ABVP, social justice for the Left’s AISA-SFI, fee hikes for the NSUI. But this year, the Satya Niketan PG collapse that killed five DU students has shaken up the tried-and-tested formulas. Parties across the ideological spectrum have now put one issue front and centre in their campaigns. Safe and affordable student accommodation.
From speeches to manifestos, this is now at the top of the promise list. The ABVP has proclaimed in big, bold letters that the “A” in its name stands for Awas — accommodation. The very first item on the NSUI manifesto is “a safe and affordable home for every DU student” and a vow to ensure “regular inspections, landlord accountability, and action against violations”. AISA-SFI has not released a formal manifesto yet, but housing is all over its Instagram campaign, with a recent reel declaring, “We want hostels, not your Thar Defender” in a dig at money and muscle in politics. It has also promised “rent control and safety audits” for PGs.
The tipping point for the campaign was the collapse of a five-storey building operating as a boys’ paying-guest facility in Satya Niketan on 6 September. Seven people died and six were critically injured, most of them DU students.
The tragedy threw a harsh light on the plight of tens of thousands of outstation DU students. Of DU’s 91 colleges, only 20 have hostel facilities. There are just around 7,000 hostel seats for more than 2.6 lakh students. Even where hostels exist, seats are scarce and infrastructure is often poor. Many students have no choice but to stay in cramped, unregulated PGs in areas such as Malka Ganj, Vijay Nagar, Kamla Nagar, Lajpat Nagar and Satya Niketan.
An alarm that has flashed red for years— from the 2023 Mukherjee Nagar fire where 61 students were injured to the Hauz Rani guesthouse blaze this June—is now at DU’s door. The Satya Niketan building had no sanctioned plan and no Fire NOC, and thousands of DU students are staying in accommodation much like it.
“The main focus for this year’s election is, of course, hostel accommodation,” said B Parijat, the joint secretary candidate from the Left-wing AISA-SFI alliance and a first-year MA English student at Hansraj College. “The horrific incident at Satya Niketan has revealed the disparity in the accommodation setup for DU students. The university must strive to provide hostels for all outstation students.”
A child comes from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam—from so far away, leaving home and family—with their dreams. Delhi University isn’t even able to provide them with a place to stay
– Vijay Meena, NSUI presidential candidate
In this four-cornered fight — the latest entrant being the AAP-backed Association of Students for Alternative Politics (ASAP) — all the parties are giving their own slant to the same burning cause, in the run-up to polling on 18 September, with results due the next day.
NSUI candidates point to the Rajiv Gandhi Hostel, built under an earlier NSUI-led union, as proof of intent. ABVP promises to break what it calls the “flat-PG nexus.” ASAP alleges that ABVP itself built the nexus.
That fight is unfolding in one of the country’s most closely watched campus elections, given that DUSU has long been a launchpad for mainstream politics, with former office-bearers including Arun Jaitley, Ajay Maken, Alka Lamba, Nupur Sharma and Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta.
This time, candidates have repeatedly framed DU’s housing problem as a national issue— one that affects students from every part of India.
“A child comes from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam—from so far away, leaving home and family—with their dreams,” said NSUI presidential candidate Vijay Meena, a law graduate currently enrolled in the Department of Buddhist Studies. “Delhi University isn’t even able to provide them with a place to stay.”