The DUCSU election has taken place. Before the election, the media had suggested that there would be a three-way contest and that the election would be competitive. The major political party, BNP, also assumed that its student wing, Chhatra Dal, would achieve a sweeping victory—though it expected to concede a few seats to Shibir and other contenders.
Now, the results of the DUCSU election are as clear as daylight. For the BNP and those who believe in progressive ideals, this is a landslide event. The defeat of Chhatra Dal has certainly come as a surprise to them.
Yes, wins and losses are part of any election. We’ve often seen the second-place party defeat the front-runner. But the manner in which Chhatra Dal lost in this DUCSU election doesn’t align with any electoral calculation. When a party is losing so badly, it usually becomes evident midway through the process. But Chhatra Dal failed to see it coming.
Chhatra Shibir had never before come close to winning an election at Dhaka University. While they had won in Chittagong University and held strong influence at Rajshahi University and other institutions, they had never tasted success in Dhaka. This time, they benefited from two key advantages.
Firstly, Jamaat-e-Islami heavily backed this election, determined to secure a win for its student wing in DUCSU. Secondly, since Shibir had never previously held power at Dhaka University, their record in the residence halls was clean—there were no old files or controversies against them.
But the biggest factor that worked in favour of Chhatra Shibir was the ‘secret cells’ formed during the July Movement. Chhatra Dal never mastered this tactic, which is why they keep stumbling against the July-era activists.
Now, if we look at the ‘big picture’—what the DUCSU election was really about—Chhatra Dal failed to grasp it. And even if they did, perhaps there wasn’t much they could do. Their ‘older brothers’ had already made the path to DUCSU murky for them.
After so many struggles and movements, ordinary students now want an organisation with a completely clean image—one that won’t harass them over dormitory seats, whose seniors won’t throw their weight around the university if they come to power, and whose student leaders won’t be racing around campus in flashy cars. Unfortunately, when the BNP was in power, Chhatra Dal was guilty of exactly this kind of behaviour. To be honest, none of BNP’s affiliated organisations are free from this public perception. And it's hard to claim that BNP has made any serious effort to change that.
Since 5 August, students across the country have seen enough about BNP to be disillusioned. They protested and even gave their lives to fight extortion, land grabbing, and corruption. Why would they now accept the return of those very things?
Yet these practices continue. Jamaat constantly points fingers at BNP for such behaviour and compares it with their own supposed ‘clean image.’ BNP’s only response seems to be to expel a few people for a few days and then go quiet.
It’s like a rotten apple—peel off a bit and claim the rest is fine. But does that mean Jamaat and Shibir are innocent? Absolutely not. Their weaknesses and role in destabilising the country run even deeper. But who’s going to talk about those things?
The question now is: what will BNP and Chhatra Dal do next? At the very least, they must accept this result with grace and show some political maturity. There were no irregularities in the election serious enough to overturn the outcome. The more they engage in mudslinging over the election, the more they will alienate ordinary students.
Earlier, I said that their record at Dhaka University was clean. But is it really that clean? Have we forgotten our teachers—Munier Chowdhury, Gias Uddin Ahmed, Mofazzal Haider Chowdhury—and many others? Chhatra Dal didn’t mention them. The violent history from Chittagong and Rajshahi universities never made its way to Dhaka University.
But BNP’s biggest mistake was its silence in the face of Jamaat’s mob actions. Homes were attacked, people were tortured, meetings were broken up by people posing as police—yet no one protested. In fact, the BNP often condoned these actions along with the government. Because BNP failed to call out Jamaat’s wrongdoings, Jamaat managed to maintain a so-called clean image.
The DUCSU election, held ahead of the national election, was a kind of test. And in this very first test, they failed. One could say that BNP’s makeshift, patchwork politics dragged Chhatra Dal down in DUCSU—and it may cause trouble for the BNP itself in the future.
The question now is: what will BNP and Chhatra Dal do next? At the very least, they must accept this result with grace and show some political maturity. There were no irregularities in the election serious enough to overturn the outcome. The more they engage in mudslinging over the election, the more they will alienate ordinary students.
The next steps must be taken by the party's senior leadership. They need to abandon the mindset of ‘we are a big party, so we must win,’ and instead start afresh with the humility of an underdog. They must break away from traditional politics and undergo a major internal reform. BNP has to show the public—and truly see for themselves—that the party is changing. Lip service alone won’t do.
If BNP cannot bring about genuine reform within the party, and if the public cannot see that reform, then the whole country will become a kind of DUCSU for them—an arena where they keep losing.
As I wrote in a previous column: 'Tarique Rahman could issue a two-line directive suspending the Swechchhasebok Dal and Jubo Dal of the party and absorb their most credible members into BNP itself. Why does a political organisation as large as BNP even need so many affiliated bodies?'
It’s not that BNP must do exactly this. But they need to take some major action—something visible to the public—that ensures people across the country no longer have to see and hear about their scandals. The DUCSU election made one thing clear: BNP cannot go far by merely capitalising on the unpopularity of the Awami League.
*Saleh Uddin Ahmed is a former DUCSU member, writer, and political analyst.
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*The views expressed are the author's own.