ABVP sweeps DUSU polls, NSUI wins one post

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

The NSUI, the student wing of the Congress, could only win in one seat.

ABVP's Ankiv Basoya won the presidential post with a margin of 1,744 votes while party's candidate Shakti Singh claimed the vice-president post with 7,673-vote margin. NSUI's Akash Choudhary won the secretary's post while ABVP's Jyoti claimed the joint secretary post.

Basoya got 2,0467 votes while his rival NSUI's Sunny Chhillar got 18,723 votes. Singh received 23,046 votes against NSUI rival Leena's 15,373 votes.

Faulty EVMs

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

The Chief Electoral Officer in Delhi on Thursday clarified that the EVMs used in DUSU elections were not issued by the Election Commission. “It 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 asked for 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 (Wednesday). Police and administration are involved in this," Fairoz Khan, NSUI president, alleged.

However, all candidates came to an agreement later and counting was resumed.

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, DUSU polls were held on Wednesday 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.

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.