ABVP bags three seats in DUSU polls (Roundup)

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) bagged three of the four seats in the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) elections, the results of which were announced here Saturday.

The ABVP won the seats of president, vice president and joint secretary, while the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) bagged the secretary's seat.

The ABVP's Aman Awana was elected president, Utkarsh Chaudhary the vice president and Raju Rawat the joint secretary.

The NSUI's Karishma Thakur was elected secretary.

All the candidates from ABVP attributed their victory to the charisma of Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat and prime minister candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party in general elections 2014.

The candidates said they had used what they called the "Modi factor" to their advantage in their campaign.

"The change will begin now as ABVP has taken the reins of the university. Modi is the youth icon and we were using him in our campaign, and it worked for us," said the proud Aman Awana, new president of the Delhi University Students' Union.

Awana polled 17,879 votes, defeating his NSUI rival Vishal Chaudhary by 1,551 votes.

With the promise of working for the university, Utkarsh Choudhary, the new DUSU vice president, said: "We will now work to make the campus safer for women as we have removed the university goons who always ignored the students' interest."

Choudhary polled 14,968 votes, defeating the NSUI's Kapil Sharma by 3,691 votes.

Rawat got 15,643 votes, beating the NSUI's Kushan Khari by 3,288 votes.

The NSUI's Thakur received 14,662 votes, defeating her ABVP rival Anshu Lakra by 2,718 votes.

NSUI supporters alleged that ABVP did not contest the election in a fair manner.

Amrish Ranjan, NSUI spokesperson, said: "We should have understood the strategy of the opponents, we contested election in a fair manner, unlike our opponents."

Congratulating the ABVP candidates who won, Nirmala Sitharaman, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson, tweeted: "Well done ABVP in DUSU. Congratulations!"

Ram Madhav, the RSS media and public relations manager, also tweeted: "Hearty congrats to ABVP for spectacular victory in DUSU polls."

Delhi BJP president, Vijay Goel, met the winners and tweeted, "Greeted the ABVP candidates for winning DUSU Elections 2013. I envision future leaders in these young individuals."

The supporters of the winning party burst into celebrations, and hit the streets, bursting crackers and dancing to the beating of drums, while those who lost the elections moved away quietly.

On the day of the counting of votes too, as on the day votes were cast, heavy security was provided by Delhi Police.

In all, 51,000 votes were polled from all the colleges of the varsity.