Aditi Mishra was crowned as the new President of the JNUSU after defeating her closest rival, RSS-backed ABVP candidate Vikas Patel by a margin of 449 votes.
Published: November 6, 2025 10:30 PM IST
JNUSU Election 2025: All India Students’ Association (AISA) candidate Aditi Mishra was elected as the new President of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) as the Left Unity– an alliance of left-aligned student groups– swept the polls on Thursday by winning all four central panel posts.
Who is Aditi Mishra?
A native of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, Aditi Mishra attended school in neighbouring Bihar and later attended the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) where she pursued an undergraduate degree in Economics.
As per media reports, Aditi first forayed into student activism in 2017 when she took part in campus protests at the BHU against the “undemocratic and patriarchal” women’s hostel curfew timings.
Later, Aditi Mishra joined Pondicherry University in 2018, where she led a gherao of the Vice Chancellor’s Office to protest against the alleged “saffronisation” campaign in the campus, which began with the “systematic installation” of banners quoting Hindutva ideologues, according to her JNUSU campaign page.
In 2019, Aditi participated in a student-led lockdown of the administrative block at the varsity against an arbitrary fee hike as well as in solidarity with the ongoing anti-CAA protests. The protests intensified and stretched into 2020, and Mishra stood out as the voice who spoke against disenfranchisement of marginalised students.
Currently, Aditi Mishra is pursuing her PhD at the Centre for Comparative Politics and Political Theory (CCPPT), School of International Studies (SIS) at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
How Aditi Mishra became JNUSU President?
On Thursday, Aditi Mishra was crowned as the new President of the JNUSU after defeating her closest rival, RSS-backed ABVP candidate Vikas Patel by a margin of 449 votes. Mishra secured a total of 1,861 votes in the JNUSU elections.
Notably, as a second year PhD student, Aditi Mishra, was earlier elected as the IC representative and worked to make it accountable and approachable to the varsity’s student body.
Left Unity sweeps JNUSU Elections
Aditi’s victory came as the Left Unity– comprised of AISA, Students’ Federation of India (SFI) and Democratic Students’ Federation (DSF)– swept the JNUSU Elections, reaffirming the Left’s dominance on the JNU campus.
Kizhakoot Gopika Babu bagged the vice-president’s post after trouncing Tanya Kumari, while Sunil Yadav and Danish Ali won the posts of general secretary and joint secretary after defeating their right-wing rivals Rajeshwar Kant Dubey and Anuj, respectively.
This year, around 9,043 students were eligible to vote. The polls recorded a 67 per cent turnout, slightly lower than the previous election’s 70 per cent. The campus saw vibrant participation with students queuing up outside hostels and schools amid chants, drumbeats and campaign songs.
The result marks a setback for the ABVP, which made a comeback to the JNUSU central panel last year when Vaibhav Meena won the joint secretary’s post — the outfit’s first victory in a decade. Earlier, Saurabh Sharma’s win in 2015 had ended a 14-year drought for the right-wing organisation.
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