Around 40 per cent of the 1.3 lakh eligible students voted in the elections to the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) on Thursday.
The DUSU results are expected by the afternoon today. Votes would be counted at the Community Hall of the Police Lines in northwest Delhi's Kingsway Camp, DU Chief Election Officer Ashok Prasad said.
DUSU Candidates
With four females, 16 candidates were in the fray for the four DUSU posts.
The RSS-affiliated ABVP had fielded Akshit Dahiya for the post of DUSU president, Pradeep Tanwar for vice-president, Yogit Rathee for general secretary and Shivangi Kherwal for joint secretary.
The NSUI, the student wing of Congress party, pitted Chetna Tyagi for the post of president, Ankit Bharti for vice-president, Ashish Lamba for secretary and Abhishek Chaprana for joint secretary.
In the North Campus, almost 400 police personnel were deployed to prevent any untoward incident, police said.
Senior Congress leader J P Aggarwal also visited North Campus around 11.30 am to canvass for NSUI, the student wing of the party and interacted with young voters. "#Dusu elections, campaigning in favour of #NSUI candidates at various colleges along with other #Congress member .. #Vote4NSUI #NSUI2311 @NSUIDelhi @nsui," he posted on Twitter.
NSUI joint secretary candidate Abhishek Chaprana was refused entry to polling booths in Dyal Singh College in South Delhi. While the outfit claims he was "illegally detained", the police said he was canvassing for votes outside the college which was not allowed.
Allegations of EVM malfunction
The NSUI also alleged that the EVM malfunctioned at a college. Ruchi Gupta, NSUI national in-charge tweeted, "Again, in Aryabhatt college, EVM is malfunctioning as usual AGAINST NSUI. When ballot is pressed for NSUI candidate, EVM does not light up to indicate registration of vote. Our rep is getting more details. " However, an election committee member said the votes were being cast but there was some problem with the light that glows. The EVM was replaced, he said, adding 152 votes had been cast.
Violation of model code of conduct
Meanwhile, the Kirori Mal College has withheld the results of central councillor posts after it was found candidates violated the model code of conduct by putting up huge hoardings, defacing college property and using printed material for seeking votes.
"We received lots of complaints against candidates contesting for the post of central Council posts. The complaints are of gross violation of code of conduct which include defacing of college property, distribution of published material and other goods, displaying of big hoardings etc. The college is very serious on these complaints and the committee will decide the fate of these candidates, " said Dr Rasal Singh, Proctor, KMC. However, the results for college union were declared by the college.
Post poll trend
The ABVP had won three posts, while the NSUI had won one post in the last year's polls, which had recorded 44.46 per cent voter turnout.
However, in the college students unions, both the ABVP and the NSUI claimed to have won the majority. Where ABVP claimed to have won over 48 seats in 51 colleges, with their 17 panels wining the elections.
"We have won majority of seats in colleges' students' union. The NSUI has been spreading lies that they have won more seats. They have even projected our winning candidates as their's," said Siddharth Yadav, state ABVP secretary.
The NSUI too alleged that the ABVP has been spreading lies and dared it to prove their claims. "I challenge them to prove any name in our list that belonged to their student wing," said NSUI state president Akshay Lakra.
NSUI claims to lead students' union of 22 colleges.
Both the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and the National Students Union of India (NSUI) claim to have drawn votes for their candidates. The left-supported AISA is also hoping to win at least one DUSU post.
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