NEW DELHI: The Congress-affiliated National Students’ Union of India’s vice-presidential candidate on Monday alleged that he was attacked by “goons of ABVP”, who refuted the claim and later filed a complaint with the police to say that there was a scuffle between two NSUI candidates. Bharti said he was attacked during his campaign at the College of Vocational Studies.
“Seeing the affection which NSUI candidates have been receiving, ABVP has now resorted to violence, which is very convenient for them,” NSUI’s Neeraj Mishra said.
As a response to NSUI’s allegations, ABVP’s national media-in-charge Monica Chaudhary said that the clash took place between NSUI’s vice-presidential and secretarial candidates Ankit Bharti and Ashish Lamba. “ABVP was not involved in the incident,” she added.
In the complaint filed at Malviya Nagar police station, ABVP state secretary Sidharth Yadav sought strict action against those who were involved in violence, saying that the NSUI was using “cheap tactics” in the election campaign.
“Sir, we request you to find the actual perpetrators of the act. All students involved in this act must be punished and put behind the bars,” he wrote.“False, propaganda-based allegations must also be controlled and action must also be taken on those who are trying to turn the act towards a direction for their own political gains,” Yadav said. The NSUI, however, didn’t file any police complaint in the matter.
ABVP hands out chocolates with candidates’ names
The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) members distributed chocolates, with stickers bearing names of their candidates pasted on them, on the last day of classroom campaigning on Monday.
The Lyngdoh Committee guidelines for fair election practices, issued in 2006 and backed by the Supreme Court, stipulates that the election budget must be no more than Rs 5,000.
To save themselves from legal action, candidates have also resorted to adding an extra vowel to their names on posters. In a statement, ABVP said, “The campaign was prefaced with an earnest appeal to student-voters to vouch for ABVP.”
While Akshit Dahiya, ABVP’s presidential candidate and Shivangi Kharwal their joint-secretarial candidate campaigned in South Campus colleges, Pradeep Tanwar, their vice-presidential candidate and Yogit Rathi, their secretarial candidate were at North Campus.