DU students’ union election results: ABVP trumps NSUI, retains 3 seats out of 4
The turnout for the DUSU elections this year stood at 42% as compared to 39.90% in 2019.
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As soon as counting ended, celebrations and cheers broke out at DU’s Arts faculty as the winners stood atop the Vivekananda statue.
Winning three posts out of four — thrice in a row — the BJP-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) continues to retain its hold over the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU). In the results declared on Saturday evening, ABVP’s Tushar Dedha was elected president, Aparajita as secretary, and Sachin Baisla as joint secretary. Abhi Dahiya, from the Congress-backed National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), won the post of vice-president.
Polling for the four key DUSU posts was held on Friday at 52 colleges and departments across North and South campuses. Twenty-four candidates were in the fray in the election, which was held after a hiatus of three years due to the pandemic-induced lockdown.
As soon as counting ended, celebrations and cheers broke out at DU’s Arts faculty as the winners stood atop the Vivekananda statue.
This is the third time that the ABVP has won three posts out of four — the last two times were under the presidentship of Akshit Dahiya in 2019-20 and Akiv Baisoya in 2018-19.
Like most years, this year also saw a straight contest between ABVP and NSUI.
The last five times, the tussle for the four posts in the union has been between the ABVP and NSUI. The ABVP bagged the president’s seat in 2016, 2018 and 2019, while the NSUI got the post for a year in between, in 2017.
In 2019, ABVP’s Akshit Dahiya defeated NSUI’s Chetna Tyagi by a margin of over 19,000 votes and became president. The ABVP had also won the vice-president and joint secretary post. The secretary post had gone to the NSUI.
This year, Dedha defeated his rival Hitesh Gulia from NSUI by 3,115 votes, while Aparajita and Baisla won the posts of secretary and joint secretary respectively by defeating NSUI’s secretary candidate Yakshna Sharma and Shubham Kumar by a margin of 12,937 and 9,995 votes respectively. NSUI’s Dahiya received 22,331 votes and defeated ABVP’s Sushant Dhankar by a margin of 1,829 votes.
Speaking about his success, Dedha said, “The ABVP’s dedication to issue-based campaigning resonated with the diverse student body of Delhi University. The substantial margins of our victories signify the deep trust and faith that students have in ABVP’s ability to work for their welfare.”
As per a statement by ABVP on Saturday, Aprajita celebrated her historic victory as a woman candidate with the highest margin of votes and stated that this victory underscores the impact of ABVP’s consistent work on women’s issues and empowerment. “We are committed to reciprocating this immense support by tirelessly serving the entire student community of Delhi University,” it said.
Meanwhile, the presidential candidate fielded by the Left-wing All India Students’ Association (AISA), Aiyesha Ahmed Khan, stood third with 3,335 votes polled against her name. The Students’ Federation of India’s Arif Siddiqui had 1,838 votes polled against his name in the race for DUSU president.
AISA said in a statement on Saturday, “Despite the unabashed display of money and muscle power, violation of norms during elections, and incidents of violence, students turned up in large numbers to participate in this democratic process and gave their mandate. After the huge setback of the lockdown and BJP-RSS-ABVP’s campaign of violence and hooliganism, AISA has shown that it is still the third front and the biggest democratic force in Delhi University.”
The turnout for the DUSU elections this year stood at 42% as compared to 39.90% in 2019.
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