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DUSU Elections 2018 – ABVP Bags 3 out of 4 positions

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After a tumultuous day of tensions and a very close call for the post of President, the DUSU election results were announced, with ABVP’s Ankiv Baisoya elected as the DUSU President and ABVP’s Shakti Singh winning the post of Vice President, NSUI’s Akash securing the post of Secretary, and ABVP’s Jyoti Choudhary winning the post of Joint Secretary.

Image Source: ABVP
Image Source: ABVP

The counting took place in Community Centre, Kingsway Camp. Until 12:30 p.m., NSUI’s Sunny Chillar was leading in the post of President, while ABVP was leading in the other three posts.

Due to discrepancies observed in the EVM machines, counting came to multiple halts throughout the day, and was even suspended for the day around 3 p.m. NSUI alleged ABVP of tampering with the Electronic Voter Machines (EVMs) and have reportedly stated that the machines display votes for Ballot No. 10 for counting of the Secretary post, which is apparently for a non-existent candidate, as the last Ballot no. was 9 for NOTA. In total, 6 EVM machines were found faulty and the protests broke out in the venue with chanting of slogans against the DU administration and the VC.

Rocky Tuseed, the current office bearer for President, was not allowed to exit the counting area, and was asked to sign a document stating for re-counting to take place tomorrow, which he categorically refused from doing.

Reportedly, a fight broke out between ABVP’s Sunny Tanwar and NSUI’s Saurabh Yadav, and the police was on the verge of resorting to lathi charge to disperse the crowd.

Ruchi Gupta, the Media in-charge of NSUI took to Twitter to express her dismay in the counting process, with repeated EVM glitches and halting of counting.

 

The counting of votes resumed from 5:50 p.m. and security measures were beefed up. Meanwhile, ABVP had asked NSUI and CYSS to accept results, and not indulge in “tactics” of claiming the EVMs to be faulty.

Once voting resumed, around 7:30 p.m., Sunny Chillar, the Presidential candidate from NSUI was leading, and by 8:50, he was leading by a close margin of 50 votes. The rounds which were subsequent to resuming counting witnessed a close call in the post of the President’s position. Eventually, ABVP’s Ankiv Baisoya won by around 2000 votes.

This year of DUSU Elections registered a record-high voter turnout with 44.46% till 7:30 p.m. yesterday, in comparison to 43% in the previous year, and a dismal 34.3% in 2016.

Anoushka Sharma

Niharika Dabral

 

Feature Image Credits: Saubghagya Saxena for DU Beat

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