Disclaimer: The interviews were held before the events on May 14. The events on May 14 will be covered in a future article.

On March 7, the Election Commission (EC) released a judgement titled ‘The Department of Visual Media (DVM) Vs Anonymous Complaint (AC)’, which responded to an anonymous complaint received by them which questioned the validity of the instatement of Anshal Shukla as the StuCCAn of DVM. The EC had ruled in favour of Anshal Shukla and kept his position as StuCCAn of DVM. On April 25, during the UC GBM meet conducted, the Union Council (UC) passed a motion to remove Anshal Shukla from the StuCCA. On April 27, the EC released a judgement titled ‘Anshal Shukla Vs the Union Council (UC)’ that overturned the motion made by the UC. To present a more resolved perspective, the English Press Club (EPC) interviewed Harsh Shukla and Harsh Lamba, who were the Students’ Union (SU) President and General Secretary respectively at the time of the interview, and Anshal Shukla, the StuCCAn of DVM.

Following the UC GBM meet on April 25, the EPC interviewed Harsh Shukla and Harsh Lamba to understand the events of the meet. Upon being asked on why the UC felt the need to remove Anshal Shukla from the StuCCA despite the resolution of the matter by the EC, Harsh Shukla stated that the UC was the overriding body of all clubs and departments on campus and finances them. Harsh Shukla claimed that the UC had received complaints regarding Anshal’s nomination and activities, and stated that they needed to step in so that the workings of the fest remained unaffected. 

Harsh Shukla cited Section X.5 of the SU Constitution, that required a member of the StuCCA or CoStAA to have had experienced at least one Oasis or APOGEE respectively, and stated that Anshal failed to meet this criteria. He stated that the seniors at DVM erred in not following constitutional behaviour in electing him StuCCAn. He further claimed that Anshal’s nomination was a result of ‘nepotism’ and ‘personal biases’ held by DVM seniors despite his ‘incompetence’, and that according to members and the executive committee of DVM, the other two StuCCAn candidates had better pitches than Anshal. 

He further elaborated on the complaints the UC had allegedly received. He stated that the UC received reports of Anshal ‘abusing’ the power he had been given, by ‘kicking out’ the whistleblower—Ayush Suman—who had lodged a complaint against Anshal’s nomination to the EC on 7th March. Harsh Shukla claimed that Ayush Suman was the ‘app team lead’ for the APOGEE app, and his removal from DVM one week prior to APOGEE was the reason behind the delayed deployment of the APOGEE app during the fest. Harsh Shukla further added that he had received complaints from two StuCCAns that they ‘would not be able to work with someone as incompetent as Anshal’. 

Anshal Shukla was not present at the UC GBM meet. The reason for his absence— according to Harsh Shukla—was a voluntary choice made by Anshal who was informed about the UC GBM meet through the CRC.

On April 29 the EPC interviewed Anshal Shukla for his side of the story and the allegations made against him. The interview was conducted after the EC had repealed the UC’s decision to remove Anshal Shukla from the StuCCA. In response to Harsh Shukla’s claims of Anshal’s failure to meet the criteria set by Section X.5 of the constitution, Anshal stated that the President’s argument of the lack of experience is completely baseless as he believes that there are active CoStAAns who fail to meet the same criteria. He refused to name these members. Anshal thus claimed that he and his department are being ‘specifically’ targeted by the President and the UC. 

Responding to the allegations of his ‘abuse of power’ by removing the whistleblower from the department, Anshal stated that the whistleblower—Ayush Suman—was expelled from the department through legal and ‘fair’ procedures. He firstly claimed that he was unaware of the whistleblower’s identity at the time of Ayush’s removal. He then claimed that a week after Ayush anonymously lodged his complaint, he received a troubling email from DVM’s executive committee (XCOM) that warned him of how the complaint might drive DVM into ‘petty politics’. This warning spurred Anshal into action, and led him to float a motion through Google Forms that was up for 24 hours for the removal of Ayush Suman on grounds of ‘anti-departmental activities’. When asked about these ‘anti-departmental activities’, Anshal claimed that Ayush had previously declared that he would ‘poach 50% of the app dev team’ if he were to be kicked out of the department. This motion was soon passed by the XCOM through a simple majority of six votes in favour of removing Ayush from the department and 3 abstentions. Ayush Suman was also a part of the XCOM at the time. Ayush was then removed from the department and its WhatsApp groups soon after.

Ayush was soon added back to the DVM WhatsApp groups by the DVM CoStAAn, Priyanshu Shukla. Anshal claimed this brief reinstatement of Ayush into the DVM WhatsApp groups was a result of Harsh Shukla threatening DVM’s CoStAAn that he would bring up Ayush’s removal from the department in the APOGEE Review Meet (ARM) and make it so that DVM ‘faces enough backlash in ARM.’ He also further claimed that Ayush had only been added back to groups with juniors in them, and not the XCOM or official groups.

Anshal refuted the assertion made by Harsh Shukla regarding Ayush being an ‘app team lead’. Anshal stated that no such position existed in DVM. Anshal clarified Ayush was one of two Joint Coordinators of DVM for APOGEE, but claimed that Ayush was an ‘inactive member’ and his expulsion did not affect the department or its procedures in any way, shape, or form. He further asserted that Ayush’s dismissal in fact helped the work of the department. As for the delay in the deployment of the DVM APOGEE application, Anshal claimed that it was an unrelated matter and not a result of Ayush’s removal. 

Anshal refuted Harsh Shukla’s claims that two StuCCAns had complained to the UC that they would not want to work with Anshal by citing an official statement made by the four other StuCCAns who were in office at the time asserting that none of them have any problem working with him. 

Anshal claimed that Harsh Shukla has been misinforming the GBM through these allegations and this reflected on his inability to ‘maintain the dignity of his office.’ He further claimed that there have been instances in the past where the President and General Secretary have tried to threaten and influence the workings of the department. However, he elaborated that he does not have any evidence for these claims.