DUSU Election Result 2019 LATEST updates: Akshit Dahiya of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad defeated National Students Union of India's Chetna Tyagi for the top post by a margin of over 19,000 votes.
While the top three posts have been bagged by ABVP, the Congress-affiliated NSUI won the post of Secretary. According to the initial trends, after the counting of votes from 45 EVMs, the ABVP was leading in all four seats.
Of the four posts in Delhi University Student Polls, results of three posts have been announced and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has won for the positions president, vice president and joint secretary seats.
With counting of votes still underway in the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) polls, latest trends show the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) leading in all the four seats of the central panel on Friday, 13 September.
The counting for DUSU elections which was supposed to begin at 8.30 am was delayed by two hours as the candidates turned up late, an official said.
The screens which show live counting faced technical issues after which candidates demanded that they be made functional. After one screen started functioning, the counting began around 10.30 am.
According to NDTV, NSUI's Chetna Tyagi is trailing behind ABVP fielded candidate Akshit Dahiya for president's post. As per reports, ABVP is 1,500 votes ahead of NSUI.
Initially, only one EVM's votes were being counted but later after all the screens started functioning, counting votes on four electronic voting machines began.
According to the initial trends, after the counting of votes from 45 EVMs, the ABVP was leading in all four seats. The Congress-affiliated National Students' Union of India (NSUI) was in second place, sources said.
To elect the student body representatives for the varsity, elections were held across 52 polling booths set across various colleges and faculty departments.
Once the counting process is concluded, the results will be announced by Friday afternoon. Votes would be counted at the Community Hall of the Police Lines in northwest Delhi's Kingsway Camp, reports claimed.
Till Thursday, the DUSU election saw a voter turnout of 39.9 percent, over four notches down from 2018, when a 44.46 percent voter turnout was recorded. Hot and humid weather, holidays in colleges and disenchantment of students with the politics were cited as reasons for the lower turnout. A total of around 1.3 lakh students and faculty members were eligible to cast their vote this year for 16 candidates, including 4 women in fray.
File image of Delhi University. News18
The polling for the four DUSU positions ended amid EVM tampering allegations. As many as 144 EVMs were used for students' union polls and 137 were used for college union polls.
Polling began in morning colleges at 9.30 am on Thursday and ended at 1 pm, while in evening colleges it commenced at 3 pm and ended at 7.30 pm. The voter turnout recorded across 43 morning colleges was 39.69 percent, almost four notches down from last year's figure of 43.8 per cent.
In 2017, the overall voting percentage was 42.5 percent while it was 36.9 percent in 2016.
The RSS-affiliated ABVP had won three posts in 2018 while, the Congress-affiliated NSUI ended up bagging just one.
Since Thursday was a declared holiday for students on account of it being election day, students did not turn up to cast their votes. However, there were long queues to cast votes at Law Faculty, Miranda House and Ramjas College.
"In the North Campus, almost 400 police personnel were deployed to prevent any untoward incident," police said.
Sidharth Yadav, State Secretary, ABVP, Delhi, said, "ABVP has won by a landslide in many internal college elections. These are very encouraging signs as far as the impending outcome of the DUSU poll is concerned."
"Despite low turnout, it is a good sign that the outfit has achieved a record mandate in college student union.We have received a good mandate in the girls' colleges, which is a positive sign," said Akshay Laura, Delhi president of NSUI.
Senior Congress leader JP Aggarwal also visited North Campus around 11.30 am to canvass for candidates of the student wing of the party and interacted with young voters.
"#Dusu elections, campaigning in favour of #NSUI candidates at various colleges along with other #Congress member .. #Vote4NSUI #NSUI2311 @NSUIDelhi @nsui," he posted on Twitter.
Outside the colleges and booths, party workers could be seen making last-minute efforts to woo voters and some also engaged in verbal duel with Opposition candidates.
Former DUSU office-bearers from ABVP and NSUI were seen walking through the North campus to gauge the mood of the voters.
NSUI claimed its joint secretary candidate Abhishek Chaprana was refused entry to polling booths in Dyal Singh College in South Delhi. The student outfit also claimed that Chaprana was "illegally detained".
The police said Chaprana was canvassing for votes outside the college which was not allowed. When he was asked not to do it, he "misbehaved" with policemen and had to be detained.
The outfit also alleged that an EVM malfunctioned at Aryabhatt college.
Ruchi Gupta, NSUI national in-charge tweeted, "Again, in Aryabhatt college, EVM is malfunctioning as usual against NSUI. When ballot is pressed for NSUI candidate, EVM does not light up to indicate registration of vote. Our rep is getting more details. "
However, an election committee member said the votes were being cast but there was some problem with the light that glows. The EVM was replaced, he said, adding 152 votes had been cast.
NSUI's secretary candidate Ashish Lamba was not allowed to enter Ramjas College after the ABVP alleged that he had brought some outsiders with him. The police said that no untoward incident was reported during polling which was peaceful.
At Kirori Mal College in Delhi University, three students, two men and a woman, tried to cast votes a second time by using the IDs of their friends, a college official said.
"The disciplinary committee of the college will take a decision on what action to take against them next week," he said.
The Kirori Mal College has also withheld the results of central councillor posts after it was found candidates violated the model code of conduct by putting up huge hoardings, defacing college property and using printed material for seeking votes.
"We received lots of complaints against candidates contesting for the post of central council posts. The complaints are of gross violation of code of conduct which include defacing of college property, distribution of published material and other goods, displaying of big hoardings etc. The college is very serious on these complaints and the committee will decide the fate of these candidates," said Dr Rasal Singh, proctor, KMC.
With inputs from PTI
