DUSU Election Result 2019 LIVE: ABVP Bags 3 Seats, NSUI Bags Secretary Post

New Delhi: The Rashtrita Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) dominated the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) elections as it won three of the four seats, while the Congress-affiliated National Students' Union of India (NSUI) bagged one.

Celebrations broke out outside the counting centre in Kingsway Camp with supporters dancing to 'dhol' beats and rose petals being showered on the winners. The winners wearing garlands proceeded to the varsity's Arts Faculty, from where they will take out a victory march.

ABVP's Ashwit Dahiya defeated NSUI candidate Chetna Tyagi for the top post by a margin of over 19,000 votes. Pradeep Tanwar and Shivangi Kharwal, both from the ABVP, secured the maximum number of votes for the posts of president, vice-president, and joint secretary, respectively. The lone winner from NSUI was Ashish Lamba, who defeated ABVP's Yogi Rathee by a margin of 2,053 votes for the post of DUSU secretary.

"ABVP fielded Yogi Rathee who was college president of Ramjas College when the violence took place in 2017. The students have given a clear mandate against violence," NSUI's Akshay Lakra said.

The counting began after a delay of almost two hours as opposed to the scheduled timing of 8.30 am as the candidates turned up late.

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. 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.

The voting turnout was recorded at 39.90 per cent this year — over four notches down from the last year.

Last year, the election saw a 44.46 per cent voter turnout. The polling for four positions of (DUSU) ended amid allegations of EVM malfunctioning. Sixteen candidates, including 4 women, were in the fray and 52 polling centres were set up.

Over 1.3 lakh students were eligible to cast their vote. As many as 144 EVMs were used for students' union polls and 137 were used for college union polls. Polling began on Thursday morning colleges at 9.30 am 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 per cent, almost four notches down from last year's figure of 43.8 per cent. In 2017, the overall voting percentage was 42.5 per cent while it was 36.9 per cent in 2016. Last year, the ABVP had won three posts while the NSUI won one post.

Hot and humid weather, holidays in colleges and disenchantment of students with the politics were cited as reasons for the lower turnout. Thursday was a declared holiday for students on account of it being election day, so students did not turn up to cast their votes, said some student leaders.

There were long queues to cast votes as Law Faculty, Miranda House and Ramjas College. In the North Campus, almost 400 police personnel were deployed to prevent any untoward incident, police said.

(With inputs from PTI)