Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP) candidates.
Credit: PTI Photo
The RSS-affiliated ABVP was leading on all the four central panel posts of the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) after eight rounds of counting, according to official data.
Counting of votes for the DUSU’s central panel posts of president, vice-president, secretary and joint secretary are under way. The election was held on Friday.
According to the data shared by Chief Election Officer, DUSU, ABVP candidates were leading on all the four posts in the first eight rounds. The Congress-affiliated NSUI was trailing on all the posts..
The DUSU elections have always seen a direct fight between the ABVP and NSUI.
Twenty-four candidates are in the fray for the elections.
The DUSU elections were last held in 2019. The polls could not be held in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19 while possible disruptions to the academic calendar prevented their conduct in 2022.
Chander Shekhar -- the chief election officer for the polls -- said the university recorded a voter turnout of 42 per cent. Around one lakh students were eligible to vote in the election.
While the voting percentage was higher than in 2019 when a turnout of 39.90 per cent was recorded, it failed to surpass the nearly 11-year-high figure of 2018. The turnouts in 2018 and 2017 were 44.46 per cent and 42.8 per cent, respectively.
Elections at 52 colleges and departments for the central panel were conducted through EVMs while voting for the college union polls was on paper ballot.
For the students, core issues ranged from fee hikes to the lack of affordable accommodations, enhanced security during college fests and menstrual leaves.
The ABVP, Congress-affiliated NSUI, CPI(M)-backed Students' Federation of India (SFI) and the CPI(ML)-Liberation-linked All India Students' Association (AISA) had fielded candidates for all four central posts. The ABVP won three of the four seats in the 2019 elections.
The DUSU is the main representative body for most colleges and faculties. Each college also has its own students' union, elections to which are held annually.