KOHIMA, December 17 (Agencies): For the first time, the central unit of the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) is supervising the election to the NSUI Nagaland unit to ensure free and fair conduct of the polls, which are scheduled to be held within the next week. After completion of a membership drive carried out earlier, the process of election of new office-bearers to the NSUI Nagaland unit, both at the district and the state level, was carried out with the filing of nominations and scrutiny of nomination papers. The process ended on Friday. Altogether, 18 nomination papers were received from across the state. After scrutiny all 18 were found to be valid.
Election to the district-level unit will be conducted first, followed by the state-level polls. To conduct the state-level election, the NSUI chief election commissioner, Anish Shetty, will arrive in Kohima on December 18.
NSUI pradesh returning officer (PRO) Subroto Borah from Assam, who is here monitoring the election along with three other observers from Assam and West Bengal, expressed hope that the entire electioneering process will be completed within the next week and that the new team of office bearers will take over before the end of the year if not before Christmas.
The motive of this exercise is to ensure a free and fair election whereby students from different sections of society are given equal opportunity and can come up and raise issues both in the state and at the national level, Borah said.
While claiming that the NSUI is purely a students' body, he said many people have the wrong notion that NSUI is backed by some political party.
Borah revealed that election to the ten-member committee for both the state and district levels will be conducted purely on the basis of merit.
He added there would be no 'losers' as the candidate who wins the highest number of votes will be the president, the second will be the vice president, the next four general secretaries (general).
Two each will represent boys and girls (one each in general and SC/ST categories) and another four posts will fill up the posts of national delegates to represent the state at the national level. The tenure of these office-bearers will be two years.
The main criteria for a candidate is that he or she should be a valid college student, not have any criminal record and not be above 27 years of age.
Election to the district-level unit will be conducted first, followed by the state-level polls. To conduct the state-level election, the NSUI chief election commissioner, Anish Shetty, will arrive in Kohima on December 18.
NSUI pradesh returning officer (PRO) Subroto Borah from Assam, who is here monitoring the election along with three other observers from Assam and West Bengal, expressed hope that the entire electioneering process will be completed within the next week and that the new team of office bearers will take over before the end of the year if not before Christmas.
The motive of this exercise is to ensure a free and fair election whereby students from different sections of society are given equal opportunity and can come up and raise issues both in the state and at the national level, Borah said.
While claiming that the NSUI is purely a students' body, he said many people have the wrong notion that NSUI is backed by some political party.
Borah revealed that election to the ten-member committee for both the state and district levels will be conducted purely on the basis of merit.
He added there would be no 'losers' as the candidate who wins the highest number of votes will be the president, the second will be the vice president, the next four general secretaries (general).
Two each will represent boys and girls (one each in general and SC/ST categories) and another four posts will fill up the posts of national delegates to represent the state at the national level. The tenure of these office-bearers will be two years.
The main criteria for a candidate is that he or she should be a valid college student, not have any criminal record and not be above 27 years of age.
