New Delhi: The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student outfit affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the right-wing hardline Hindutva group and the ideological mentor of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), sweeed the students union elections in Delhi University, winning three out of four posts.
The ABVP won all key posts including President, Vice-President and the post of Secretary.
While ABVP’s Amit Tanwar won the President’s seat, Priyanka Chabri was elected Vice President. Ankit Sangwan, also of the ABVP won the Secretary post.
The Congress-backed National Students Union of India (NSUI) won just Joint Secretary seat. The NSUI’s Mohit Sangwan became Joint Secretary after winning the DUSU polls held on Friday.
The results are a minor setback for the ABVP which had swept all four posts in 2014 and 2015, defeating the predominant NSUI and CYSS (students wing of the Aam Aadmi Party) and AISA. This year, the CYSS pulled out of the elections as they failed to win a single post last year.
Over 36 per cent of students exercised their franchise yesterday in the keenly contested Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) polls with the voting percentage recording a dip of over 7 per cent from last year's overall turnout of 43.3 per cent.
The political slugfest at DU has over the decades been between Congress-affiliated National Students' Union of India (NSUI) and RSS' student wing Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).
Left-affiliated All India Students Association (AISA) tried for the central panel posts with a series of campaigns done by the outfit in recent months to thwart alleged attempts of attacks on university campuses across the country but could not win a single post.
A total of 17 candidates were in fray for the four posts of DUSU office-bearers. While 7 candidates were in race for the post of President, 4 nominations had been validated for the post of Vice-President, according to D S Rawat, Chief Election Commissioner for DUSU polls said.
"Three contestants each were in fray for the post of Secretary and Joint Secretary," he said.
The voting for Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections took place in two phases across 117 booths set up at 51 colleges of the university.
"With a total of 1,23,246 voters, the voting took place across 51 colleges of the university from morning to evening," Rawat said.
Rawat also said 300 EVMs were used for the elections and adequate security arrangements had been made at each and every polling centre to prevent any untoward incident.
"Minor technical glitches were reported in Aurobindo College in the morning phase but was rectified within a few minutes," he added.
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.
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