JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh in Bengal poll fray on CPM ticket

NEW DELHI: JNU Students Union president Aishe Ghosh, who shot into the limelight during the protests against the 2020 fee hike, will be contesting the West Bengal assembly election on a CPM ticket from Jamuria. The 25-year-old from Durgapur is pursuing MPhil/Phd from School of International Relations.


Several ex-JNUSU presidents — DP Tripathi, Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechuri, Chandrashekhar Prasad, Shakeel Ahmed Khan, Tanvir Akhtar and Kanhaiya Kumar — graduated to state and national politics. With the exception of Tanveer who won as an NSUI candidate, the others represented Left student bodies.


Ghosh is probably the first sitting JNUSU president to contest assembly elections. Member of CPM’s student wing SFI, she became the president in 2019. The top post was claimed by the SFI after a 13-year gap though it was a Left coalition at work.

Ghosh graduated in political science from Delhi University’s Daulat Ram College. She was involved in student politics from her college days. She moved to JNU for her masters.

Aishe was at JNU stir when candidature announced

The 2020 fee hike protest had started during her tenure as president, but it was after the January 5 violence when she received injury in the head and hand that she gained larger prominence. Ghosh led from the front demanding justice and action against the perpetrators.

Even when her candidature was announced, she was participating in a JNU protest demanding the re-opening of campus and library facilities. She came back to the university on March 8.

She comes from a family of Leftists. Her father Debasish Ghosh, an employee of Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC), has been associated with the Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the labour wing of CPM.