ABVP, student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, on Thursday bagged three posts, including that of the president, in the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) elections, while the Congress-backed NSUI won only one seat. AAP’s student wing CYSS, which contested the DUSU polls in alliance with Left-backed AISA, failed to open its account.

ABVP’s Ankiv Basoya won the presidential poll by 1,744 votes while party colleague Shakti Singh bagged the vice president post by winning with a margin of 7,673 votes. NSUI’s Akash Choudhary won the secretary’s post while ABVP’s Jyoti Chaudhary bagged the joint secretary post.

Basoya got 20,467 votes while his rival NSUI’s Sunny Chhillar polled 18,723 votes. Singh bagged 23,046 votes against NSUI rival Leena’s 15,373 votes.

Abhigyan, the joint candidate put up by the All India Students Association (AISA) and the Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS), polled 8,019 votes. The joint vice-presidential candidate, Anshika Singh of Dyal Singh College, got 7,335 votes.

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The alliance candidate for secretary post, Chandramani Dev, a student of Law Centre-II, got 452 votes. Notably, 6,810 students selected NOTA for the post.

Sunny Tanwar, a student of PGDAV College, who contested for the post of joint secretary secured 9,199 votes.

After the results were declared, lone winning candidate from NSUI, Akash Choudhary alleged that data of seven EVMs were missing.

He added, “There has been cheating on the other posts and we will fight against the unfair treatment meted out to us.”

The Chief Electoral Officer in Delhi clarified on Thursday that the EVMs used in DUSU polls had not been issued by the Election Commission, and that it seemed to have been procured privately.

On Thursday evening, the counting of votes had been suspended for a few hours following glitches in the EVMs but was resumed amid heavy police deployment.

While the NSUI had demanded fresh polling, the ABVP wanted resumption of counting.

“There are only 8 candidates so how is it possible that votes were cast to a 10th candidate? All machines were fine yesterday. Police and administration are involved in this,” alleged NSUI president Fairoz Khan.

Later, all candidates came to an agreement on resumption of counting.

ABVP’s Ankiv Basoya, who won the president’s post, is pursuing MA in Buddhist Studies. He has been associated with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad since 2015.

“Our election manifesto said we would dedicate 50 per cent of the DUSU budget to women safety, so I will now work towards making the campus safer for women,” he said.

“Our party has worked for the welfare of students and we will continue to do so,” Basoya added.

Shakti Singh, who won the vice-president post, is a national-level boxer. He was the only candidate who has not done his graduation from DU. He completed his graduation from MIT Pune and is now studying law at the Delhi University’s Faculty of Law.

“Since I am a sportsperson, I will work towards promoting sports culture in the university. We’d also mentioned about promoting sports in our manifesto. This win indicates the country’s students are with the ABVP,” he said.

ABVP’s Jyoti Chaudhary, who won the joint secretary post, completed her graduation from Vivekananda College and is currently pursuing MA in Buddhist Studies.

DUSU polls have traditionally seen a two-cornered contest between NSUI and ABVP. The Left-affiliated AISA and Aam Aadmi Party’s CYSS entered into an alliance and vied for the central panel posts this time.

The polling was conducted amid heavy police presence and a voter turnout of 44.46 per cent was recorded.

Polling took place at 52 centres, and there were 23 candidates in the fray.

DUSU is the representative body of students from most colleges and faculties. Apart from DUSU, each college has its own students’ union for which separate elections are held.

(With agency inputs)