In an election marked by controversy due to erroneous Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) won three of the four posts in the Delhi University Students' Union elections on Thursday.
Ankiv Basoya, Shakti Singh and Jyoti Chaudhary bagged the posts of president, vice-president and joint secretary respectively. The traditional opponent, National Students' Union of India (NSUI), managed to score only one position. Akash Chaudhary will be the new secretary.
Basoya won the top post with a margin of 1,744 votes while Singh was declared as the vice-president with a huge margin of 7,673 votes.
The results came in late night after the counting was resumed around 5:30 pm. The election committee had suspended the counting in the afternoon after technical glitches were reported while votes were being counted. Chief Election Officer VK Kaul told reporters gathered outside the Community Hallin Kingsway Camp that they will decide the further course of action in the evening.
Contesting candidates and supporters from NSUI and ABVP clashed on the campus immediately, creating uproar during a largely peaceful polling. Scores of students, joined by members of AISA-CYSS alliance, camped outside the community hall, raising slogans against the officials.
In the initial trends that came in before the EVMS were declared "faulty", NSUI was leading on the three seats, including two top positions of the president and the vice-president. AISA-CYSS candidate Sunny Tanwar was giving a close fight to Akash and Jyoti for the secretary's post. As the counting resumed in the evening from the seventh round, ABVP was the front runner for the post of president, vice-president and joint secretary. NSUI alleged that the EVMs were rigged to give advantage to ABVP, which suffered an embarrassing defeat at their hands last year. Winner Basoya, however, argued, "The mandate of students is for all to see. The cried foul was created over the EVMs because the NSUI knew it is going to lose. The party should accept its defeat gracefully."
In a keenly contested elections, ABVP used women's safety, extra curricular activities, and sports as its poll plank. The NSUI, meanwhile, kept the fight interesting with its Rs 10 special economical thali.
