DUSU elections: ABVP wins 3 seats, NSUI bags one

The new panel comprises ABVP’s Tushar Dedha, Aprajita and Sachin Baisla, as president and secretary and joint secretary, respectively, and the NSUI’s Abhi Dahiya as vice-president

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) maintained its winning streak in the Delhi University Students’ Union elections despite a three-year hiatus, as it retained the presidential post on the four-member central panel, along with two other posts of secretary and joint secretary.

ABVP candidates Tushar Dedha, Aprajiita and Sachin Baisla celebrate after their win in the DUSU elections on Saturday. (Raj K Raj/HT PHOTO)

The Congress’s student wing National Students’ Union of India managed to win the vice-president’s post in the election, the results of which were announced on Saturday.

The new panel comprises ABVP’s Tushar Dedha, Aprajita and Sachin Baisla, as president and secretary and joint secretary, respectively, and the NSUI’s Abhi Dahiya as vice-president. All the four elected candidates are students at the Delhi University’s Department of Buddhist Studies.

The results were declared after 24 rounds of counting, according to officials. Dedha won by a margin of 3,115 votes, while NSUI’s Dahiya was elected as the vice-president with 22,331 votes. ABVP’s Aprajita and Baisla secured the posts of secretary and joint secretary with 24,534 and 24, 955 votes, respectively. At least 16,559 students voted for NOTA across all four posts. Voting was held on Friday, which recorded a turnout of 42%.

Other parties in the fray were All India Students’ Association (AISA), Students’ Federation of India (SFI), Indian National Students’ Organisation (INSO), Disha and a few independent candidates. The campaigning for the key university elections lasted for nearly a month across DU’s 52 colleges and departments. Despite the gap, the ABVP managed to hold the majority posts in the panel. When the elections were last held in 2019, it had won three seats and NSUI one.

Soon after the announcement of results on Saturday, winning candidates and their supporters began celebrations, as they thronged the Arts Faculty in North Campus with crackers and drums.

“Our panel has registered this victory because of the past work done by ABVP in DU and continuous activism on the campus. Student union elections were held after four years and ABVP won by such a huge margin. It shows that ABVP has always been available to resolve the problems of students,” said Dedha, the newly elected DUSU president.

Senior BJP members, including the party’s national president Jagat Prakash Nadda and Union home minister Amit Shah, congratulated the winners.

“This victory reflects the faith of the young generation in the ideology that puts national interest first,” said Shah. Congratulating ABVP members, Nadda said, “This triumph shows the ubiquitous acceptance of the ideology of ‘nation first’ among our young generation, who will shape our nation’s tomorrow.” Union minister Kiren Rijiju also congratulated the winning candidates and said that the result was a “victory of nationalism”.

Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely also congratulated the winning NSUI candidate even as he alleged that the election was “biased”.

“Despite every agency working for ABVP, the victory of NSUI on the post of vice president in the election is significant. It was a very biased election, despite that NSUI won a seat and got a large number of votes on other seats which makes the development commendable. It is an indicator that we have bright prospects and we will do well in the coming elections,” he said.

NSUI also congratulated Dahiya and thanked the voters. “We would like to thank all the supporters and activists of NSUI. This victory belongs to you. We pledge to keep on raising the voice of common students across the nation,” wrote NSUI on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).

Chandra Shekhar, chief election officer, said that the election was conducted smoothly. “We are happy that the elections concluded successfully, without any glitch,” said Shekhar.