The NSUI on Wednesday alleged that the DUSU results were tampered with due to the “personal intervention” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah and threatened to go to court over the issue.
AICC secretary in charge of NSUI Girish Chodankar said that the Congress’ students wing, National Students Union of India (NSUI), had won three of the four seats, including President, Vice President and Joint Secretary, in the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) election. But the ABVP was subsequently declared victorious in the Joint Secretary seat.
“We had won three seats, but there was manipulation subsequently following the personal intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, after which the results tampered.
“We have asked the election committee to recount the votes. If they do not do it by the end of the day, we will approach the Delhi High Court to contest the result. This is a matter of shame for the BJP that they have to manipulate results to ensure that ABVP wins,” Chodankar said.
The Congress had earlier begun sending out congratulatory messages when it was reported that the NSUI had bagged three seats. Senior Congress leaders Ajay Maken and Sharmistha Mukherjee congratulated the student’s wing for winning three seats.
But it was later announced that the Joint Secretary post went to the ABVP.
NSUI said the “HRD Ministry and the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) were pressuring DU administration to manipulate the results”.
“We will approach the Grievance Cell now for the recounting,” NSUI’s Avinash Yadav, who lost the Joint Secretary seat to the RSS-affiliated ABVP by 342 votes, said.
He said senior ABVP leaders were present inside during the counting area and the screen showing the video of the counting process “went blank for as long as 30 seconds pointing to some irregularities”.
Chief Election Officer S.B. Babbar, however, said there were no lapses in the counting as “DU is the only university which uses EVMs”.
“He (Avinash Yadav) is crying foul because he lost with a close margin. And as for lapses in the video, they were no longer than a couple of seconds.”
“There were no ABVP leaders inside, nor from NSUI, only the candidates,” Babbar said.