New Delhi: RSS student wing ABVP on Saturday bagged three out of four central seats in the Delhi University Student Union (DUSU), in an election held after a gap of three years.
Congress’ student wing NSUI candidate won the post of vice-president.
ABVP candidate Tushar Dedha won the post of president by 3,115 votes, Aparajita won the post of secretary by 12,937 votes and Sachin Baisla won the post of co-secretary by 9,995 votes. NSUI’s Abhi Dahiya won vice-president’s post with 1,300 votes.
In the previous student election in 2019, the results were the same, except that the ABVP had lost the secretary post which went to the NSUI. However, the then president Akshit Dahiya had won with a significant margin of 29,000 votes.
The DUSU election took place on 22 September, marking the end of a three-year hiatus. There were no polls in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, while potential disruptions to the academic schedule resulted in another idle year in 2022.
Chander Shekhar, the chief election officer responsible for supervising the elections, announced that there was a 42 percent voter turnout. This turnout is based on the eligibility of approximately one lakh students to participate in the election.
Earlier while the counting of votes was going on, former NSUI leader and AICC national spokesperson Ragini Nayak put put a tweet questioning transparency in the counting process.
कुणाल भाई…
आप भी कमाल करते हैं
मोदी राज में पारदर्शिता की उम्मीद रखते हैं 🙄वैसे,
ये कितना भी पाखंड कर लें
जीतेगी तो @nsui ही 👊🏻 https://t.co/Y36NXkOrYT— Dr. Ragini Nayak (@NayakRagini) September 23, 2023
Congress leader Alka Lamba, too, had alleged of manipulation in the counting process.
“NSUI is leading on all four posts and seeing it moving towards victory, in panic the entire BJP power, university and union administration has resorted to manipulation. There is no transparency, no accountability, attempts to murder the democracy,” she tweeted.
In results announced a day before, the ABVP also won different posts across 34 colleges, with a clean sweep in eight colleges including Vivekananda College, Lakshmi Bai College, Bhaskaracharya College, and Shivaji College. The NSUI claimed victory in 17 day colleges.
Union ministers Meenakshi Lekhi, Kiren Rijiju congratulated the ABVP as soon as the early trends started emerging. Rijiju tweeted that Rahul Gandhi’s campaign in Delhi University helped ABVP to increase its vote share.
#ABVP sweeps #DUSU
Rahul Gandhi campaigned in Delhi University Students Union Election which helped ABVP to increase it’s vote share!
Congratulations to all the Winning Candidates of ABVP, it’s cadres as well as all the wishers!#DUSUElection2023 #ABVP pic.twitter.com/KiNRBeVMV4— Kiren Rijiju (@KirenRijiju) September 23, 2023
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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