NEW DELHI: After a span of four years, the Congress-backed student wing — the National Student Union of India (NSUI) — pulled off a major victory by winning two seats — of president and vice-president — in the Delhi University Student Union(DUSU) polls for which the results were declared on Wednesday.
Rocky Tuseed and Kunal Sehrawat of NSUI were elected as the new president and vice president of DUSU respectively and Mahamedha Nagar and Uma Shankar of ABVP bagged the seats of secretary and joint secretary.
Tuseed, the newly-elected president of DUSU, said “I have fought the legal battle against the varsity just to work hard for the students.” Earlier, Tuseed who won the legal battle in the Delhi High Court after his nomination was cancelled by the varsity, got 16,299 votes defeating ABVP candidate Rajat Choudhary by a margin of 1,590 votes. Sehrawat secured 16,431 votes by defeating his closest rival with margin of 175 votes.
ABVP’s Mahamedha Nagar, the lone girl in the elected panel garnered 17,156 which is 2,624 more votes than the NSUI’s Menakshi Meena for the post of secretary, while, Uma Shankar of ABVP defeated his arch rival Avinash Yadav by 342 votes.
The left-affiliated All India Student Association(AISA) obtained a total of around 29,355 votes, which is a four times increase as compared to last year which was around 5,000. Meanwhile, the NSUI has stated that they will approach the court for re-election at the post of secretary. A total of 29,765 students pressed on the NOTA. The NSUI has all together bagged 63,611 which is 51 per cent of the votes polled.
The polls which were held on September 12, saw an almost ten increase as compared to last year. A close to 46 per cent, recording an increase 1,23,246 voters has casted their vote this year. In the closely contested elections, major political parties deploy huge amount money and muscle power to attract the students in their support. This year’s DUSU election became a contest of ideologies, with students talking more about the issues like freedom of speech and violence free campus.