DUSU Elections 2025: SFI Emerges Stronger, Challenging Money-Muscle and Caste Politics
Sneha Aggarwal, Mehina Fathima
THE Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections of 2025 have not merely been a contest of ballots but a clear referendum on the state of campus politics. In a landscape long dominated by the money-muscle power of the ABVP and the NSUI, the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) has carved out a significant and hopeful space, emerging as the definitive third pole and the voice of progressive, issue-based student politics.
Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) is the world’s largest student body with a total of 52 Delhi University affiliated colleges and departments participating in the electoral process. Apart from being the largest student union elections, DUSU is majorly infamous for the influence of money and muscle in student politics. For the past many years, ABVP and NSUI have been winning DUSU elections using politics that is heavily dominated by caste and money-muscle power. Post-covid, SFI has been actively contesting the DUSU elections and is consistently gaining the trust of students through its focus on common students’ issues in the university. SFI has been continuously challenging the authoritarian and corrupt administration and its policies, even without being in the office of DUSU, be it the issue of rampant fee hike, lack of availability of hostels to the students, non-functionality of ICCs, unavailability of concessional metro pass, non-functional sanitary pad vending machines, lack of medical rooms etc. SFI has also been at the forefront of fighting against the anti-student policies of the Modi-government and the university administration, like NEP, FYUP etc, especially with regards to the forceful implementation of bogus courses in the name of SEC and VAC which aims to dilute the core courses and prevent the student community from gaining knowledge.
Three years continuously in a row, SFI has been the only Left students’ organisation which has seen consistent impressive performance during elections throughout Delhi University. In 2023, when DUSU elections happened after a break of four years, SFI got more than 5,000 votes, in 2024, SFI managed to get 8,806 votes and this year, in 2025, SFI got 9,535 votes, standing at third position, being the only Left organisation to consistently do so in recent years. This is not just the numerical data, but it is the reflection of the concrete trust that students are continuously putting on SFI to lead them.
This year our candidates Sohan Kumar and Abhinandana Pratyashi, both representing the marginalised backgrounds they come from, dedicatedly put forth and fought on the problems that common students of DU face on a regular basis. Abhinandana, being the first north eastern tribal student and the first openly queer student ever to contest DUSU elections, and Sohan Kumar, coming from a rural and flood-stricken area in Bihar with financially unstable background, both have taken the ideology of SFI among students strong enough to make it staunchly clear that SFI is the only alternative against hooliganism and caste based money-muscle politics.
SFI has actively formed its units in many colleges of Delhi University including Ramjas College, Miranda House, Hindu College, Hansraj College, Zakir Husain Delhi College, Shivaji College, Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences, BR Ambedkar College, College of Vocational Studies etc. It is only because of the movements and progressive student politics that SFI does 365 days round the year, that ten thousand students placed their trust in SFI this year in the DUSU elections. The progressive politics of SFI and the organisation's focus on issue-based politics, countering money-muscle and caste politics has made SFI a more favourable choice for students in college-level elections also (which happen alongside the university level elections).
The most resounding testament to this shift came from Zakir Husain Delhi College (Evening) this year. A college historically considered an ABVP bastion witnessed a political upheaval as students chose SFI to lead them. The SFI unit secured a remarkable victory, winning the secretary and central councilor posts. In a nail-biting contest, they lost the joint secretary post by a mere eight votes, a margin that underscores both the intense nature of the battle and the widespread acceptance of SFI’s agenda. This was not a fluke but a conscious choice by students disillusioned with the politics of empty promises and intimidation.
The victory extended to the Delhi School of Social Work also, where the SFI-backed People’s Progressive Panel achieved a spectacular clean sweep, winning all five seats they contested, including the key positions of president and general secretary. This unanimous mandate highlights the yearning for a politics that prioritises student welfare over money-muscle agendas.
Beyond these outright wins, SFI’s growth was palpable across the university. A standout example is Miranda House, where the SFI unit’s vibrant and assertive campaigns against the misogynistic ABVP captured the student attention nationally. Their impactful ‘ABVP Go Back’ campaigns, which went viral on social media, resonated deeply with a university-wide sentiment against hooliganism and garnered widespread acceptance. This on-ground mobilisation translated directly into electoral gains, with the unit making a nearly 100 per cent increase in its vote share compared to the previous year. Similarly, in colleges like Maharaja Agrasen College and Zakir Husain Delhi College (Morning), SFI candidates registered a significant upward trajectory in their vote share, signaling a deepening roots and a growing resonance of SFI’s ideology.
However, the electoral journey in DU this year was not without its undemocratic hurdles. In colleges like BR Ambedkar College, Hansraj College and College of Vocational Studies, where SFI is a strong contender and the only resistance to ABVP hooliganism, the nominations of SFI candidates were unjustly cancelled by the administration on flimsy and politically motivated grounds. This blatant partisanship, which gave a free pass to the goons of ABVP and NSUI while silencing democratic voices, exposes the very machinery SFI is fighting against. It underscores the challenging environment in which the organisation operates, battling not just political rivals but an often-complicit administration.
The 2025 DUSU elections have proven that SFI is the largest progressive force fighting against the corrosive combination of money, muscle, and caste politics in Delhi University. It stands as a beacon of hope for students left hopeless by the cynical cycle of ABVP-NSUI duopoly. By focusing on substantive issues like academic freedom, hostel facilities, gender justice, and democratic rights, SFI is successfully offering a credible and principled alternative. The message is clear: the students of Delhi University are ready for a change, and SFI envisages a systematic organisational expansion in DU colleges in the coming days.
