DUSU elections: ABVP wins president's, two other posts, NSUI bags one

The ABVP, the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, Thursday bagged three posts, including that of the president, in the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections.

The NSUI, the student wing of the Congress, won only one seat.

ABVP's Ankiv Basoya won the presidential post with a margin of 1744 votes while party's candidate Shakti Singh was declared as the vice president after he won with a margin of 7673 votes. NSUI's Akash Choudhary won the secretary's post while ABVP's Jyoti emerged victorious on the joint secretary post.

Basoya got 20467 votes while his rival NSUI's Sunny Chhillar got 18723 votes. Singh received 23046 votes against NSUI rival Leena's 15373 votes.

Choudhary, the lone winning candiadte of the NSUI, alleged that fair elections were not conducted and data of seven EVMs were missing.

The Chief Electoral Officer in Delhi Thursday clarified that the EVMs used in DUSU elections have not been issued by the Election Commission and it seems to have been procured privately.

The counting had to be suspended for few hours following glitch in the EVMs but was resumed in the evening amid heavy police deployment.

The NSUI demanded fresh polling, while the ABVP demanded resumption of counting.

"There are only 8 candidates so how is it possible that votes were cast to a 10th candidate? All machines were fine yesterday. Police and administration are involved in this," Fairoz Khan, NSUI president, alleged.

Later, all candidates came to an agreement on resumption of counting.

Celebrations broke out with bursting of crackers and loud cheering at the Kingsway camp counting venue as the results were announced. The supporters lifted the victorious candidates on their shoulders and posed for photos flashing the 'victory' sign.

While the battle for DUSU has mainly been the contest between the NSUI and the ABVP for years, the Left-affiliated AISA and Aam Aadmi Party's CYSS entered into an alliance and also vied for the central panel posts this time.

Amid heavy police presence and some last-minute wooing of voters, DUSU polls were held yesterday with a voter turnout of 44.46 per cent.

Polling took place at 52 centres in the colleges. There were as many as 23 candidates in the fray.

DUSU is the representative body of the students from most colleges and faculties. Apart from DUSU, which is an umbrella council, each college also has its own students union for which they hold separate elections.

Though Delhi University officially does not recognise any political outfit, students who contest the polls are backed by different parties.

The polls have been keenly contested over decades and are seen as a stepping stone to mainstream politics.

Union minister Arun Jaitley, Congress leader Ajay Maken, former Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay, Union minister and BJP leader Vijay Goel are some of the prominent politicians whose journey into mainstream politics began from DUSU.