Months ahead of the student body elections in Jawaharlal Nehru University, RSS students' wing ABVP has demanded that the varsity introduce electronic voting machines in place of traditional ballot papers for polling.
"Every year lots of paper is wasted in creating ballots and electoral rolls for the student body elections in JNU. This is unnecessary and not a feasible idea, when all over the world people are switching to electronic and digital means of voting," Saurabh Kumar Sharma, the lone ABVP member in JNUSU said in a letter to HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar.
The letter has also been shared with Union Environment Minister Anil Dave, the JNU Registrar and the Dean of Students.
"It will help build a clean and tidy campus during elections, which otherwise is full of wasted paper and littering which happens around this time. Other universities in India have also been using EVMs in their student body elections in a very successful way," the letter added.
The JNU Students' Union elections are held every year in September when the varsity votes to elect their leaders for four crucial posts.
The elections for student representatives of the Gender Sensitisation Committee Against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH), a body which deals with complaints of sexual persecution, are held in April every year.
However this year, a controversy over a sedition case against some JNU students delayed the GSCASH elections which will now be held along with student union polls.
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The left-affiliated All India Students Association (AISA) meanwhile opposed the demand, saying ballot papers, unlike EVMs, are not prone to manipulation and are part of "clean politics" in JNU.
"Elections in JNU are a celebration. Representatives of all candidates sit together and count the votes very very carefully. It's the cleanest way of doing politics. Ballot paper, unlike EVM, is not prone to manipulation. We have seen complaints regarding EVM manipulation from various parts of the country," JNUSU Vice President, Shehla Rashid said.
