The Aam Aadmi Party’s rebranded student wing in Delhi, the Association of Students for Alternative Politics (ASAP), has started its mobilisation process a month before the Delhi University student union elections.
The student wing held a protest at the main gate of Delhi University North Campus on the faulty recruitment process of the Staff Selection Commission (SSC). Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections will have 4 seats for grabs next month.
“Earlier, we used to contest student elections intermittently, but things are different now,” said Delhi ASAP vice president Kamal Tiwari. “This time, we are bringing in fresh energy. We will contest every time, everywhere.”
Tiwari emphasised that ASAP’s focus is now firmly on student elections and that the party will contest all four central panel seats in the upcoming Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) elections. “We already have units prepared in almost every college and have announced 30 functional college units,” he added.
The AAP's leadership has also set a target of reaching 20,000 students across the country. “For now, we are focusing only on Delhi,” Tiwari says.
The student wing kicked off its campaign with the protest named 'Hala Bol', where around 150 students participated, to demand systemic improvement in the recruitment process of the Staff Selection Post (SSC) on August 5.
The Phase 13 exam, which was conducted between July 24 and August 1 across 142 cities and 194 centres, was plagued by multiple glitches like abrupt cancellations, biometric verification failures, erroneous centre allotments and software crashes.
However, the on-campus presence of the wing is comparatively smaller than its competitors, the BJP’s student wing ABVP and Congress student wing NSUI. Both the student wings of national parties have dominant physical flag presence and huge registered members as compared to the AAP’s student wing.
The party’s student wing, initially known as the Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS), was established after the party’s first government formation in Delhi in September 2014 as AAP’s student organisation. However, due to waning visibility and limited success —especially in Delhi University—AAP decided to rebrand CYSS as ASAP in May 2025. The launch marked AAP’s first high-profile political engagement in the capital after suffering a major setback. With the new name, it seeks to reignite its grassroots connection with Indian youth.
ASAP president Kuldeep Bidhuri, who previously contested his first election on an AAP ticket and lost to the ABVP in Delhi University Student Union (DUSU), has remained active since. Despite the loss, he has played an active role in keeping the organisation’s student wing ticking. His early efforts laid the foundation for ASAP’s current campus outreach, aiming to challenge the traditional dominance of student bodies like ABVP and NSUI.
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AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal has earlier framed ASAP as not just a student organisation but a unit that will work as a movement to redefine politics on campus. This includes challenging, which he calls the failed model of “mainstream politics” practiced by the BJP and Congress for decades.
“Right now, only two student wings are dominating the scene, and that is Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), Varun Goel, a Delhi University student, says, “there is not much impact of it.”
Another student, Vishnu, says the student wing is just picking up on becoming a third front in student politics but does not have that pull yet. “They don’t seem to be picking issues that can connect with us,” Vishnu says, ‘there are many issues and if they pick up those issues many students can turn towards them.”
However, a few other students emphasised that the new formation has become active and can become a solid force in student politics if they perform well in the upcoming elections.