NSUI's DUSU presidential candidate Vijai Shankar Meena on Saturday alleged that bogus voting took place during the Delhi University Students' Union elections and claimed some students were forced to vote, saying he would approach the court over the matter. The allegations came as the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) won three of the four central-panel posts.
"We have not lost, and every Delhi University student won the election. Thank you so much for your immense support. We had lodged a complaint yesterday regarding incidents at colleges like Swami Shraddhanand College, Ramjas College and Shivaji College," Meena said, reported PTI.
"There was false voting, and students were forcibly made to vote, and their ID cards were confiscated. We will take this matter to court and fight for it," he added.
Meena's allegations came after the NSUI failed to win any of the four central-panel posts in the DUSU elections.
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad's Yash Dabas won the presidential contest with 24,576 votes, defeating Meena by 2,053 votes.
The election result also brought renewed attention to dissidence within the Congress' student wing, with an NSUI rebel winning the vice-president's post by a substantial margin.
Independent candidate Deepanshu Shokeen, who had sought an NSUI ticket and was initially nominated by the organisation before being asked to withdraw his nomination, won the vice-president's post with 30,615 votes. ABVP's Ishu Maurya finished second with 16,910 votes, while NSUI's official candidate Veer Chatrath secured 4,313 votes.
Another NSUI ticket aspirant, Vishesh Yadav, contested the joint secretary's post with the backing of the Samajwadi Chhatra Sabha after the organisation withdrew a ticket he had initially been told he would receive. Yadav finished second with 15,778 votes, narrowly behind ABVP's Lakshay Raj Singh, who polled 16,615 votes. NSUI's Gopal Chaudhary received 15,206 votes.
The ABVP won the president, secretary and joint secretary posts, while Shokeen, contesting as an Independent, secured the vice-president's post.
The developments have reportedly prompted scrutiny of NSUI's ticket distribution during the tenure of Congress leader Kanhaiya Kumar, who was appointed the All India Congress Committee in-charge of NSUI in July 2023.
PTI said that, sources close to Kumar rejected suggestions that an ego clash with Shokeen had led to him being denied an NSUI ticket. They claimed that NSUI had offered Shokeen the presidential nomination, but that he insisted on contesting for vice-president.
The PTI report also added that the sources further alleged that Shokeen, who is a Jat, was reluctant to contest against ABVP's Yash Dabas, who is also from the community, and claimed there was an understanding between the two. NSUI, they said, did not want to concede the presidential contest and instead fielded Meena.
The current DUSU episode is not the first instance of an NSUI rebel either defeating or significantly outperforming the organisation's official candidate.
At Panjab University in 2024, NSUI rebel Anurag Dalal contested for president as an Independent after a dispute over ticket distribution and won with 3,433 votes. NSUI's official candidate Rahul Nain polled 501 votes and finished sixth.
The rebellion followed the resignation of Chandigarh NSUI president Sikander Boora, who backed Dalal and accused the organisation's leadership of imposing decisions on the local unit. He was subsequently suspended by NSUI.
Panjab University saw another dispute a year later, when the choice of candidate became a point of contention within NSUI. The local unit and then NSUI national president Varun Chaudhary backed Sumit Kumar, while Kanhaiya Kumar supported Parabjot Singh Gill. Sumit Kumar subsequently contested outside the NSUI fold and finished second with 2,660 votes. The official NSUI candidate polled 1,359 votes, while ABVP's Gaurav Veer Sohal won with 3,148 votes.
DUSU also witnessed a rebellion last year when former NSUI leader Umanshi Lamba contested as an Independent after being denied the ticket and polled 5,522 votes. ABVP's Aryan Maan won the presidential contest with 28,841 votes, while NSUI candidate Joslyn Choudhary received 12,645 votes.
NSUI national president Vinod Jakhar had himself contested as an Independent after being denied the organisation's ticket for the Rajasthan University Students' Union presidential election in 2018. He won the election before later returning to NSUI, heading its Rajasthan unit and becoming the organisation's national president in February this year.
NSUI's electoral record during Kumar's tenure has otherwise been mixed. Kumar's intervention ahead of the 2023 Panjab University polls was followed by the candidature of Jatinder Singh, who had previously been associated with ABVP. Singh joined NSUI in Kumar's presence days before polling and went on to win the presidency with 3,002 votes.
NSUI also won the DUSU presidency in 2024, when Ronak Khatri secured 20,207 votes, ending the organisation's seven-year wait for the post. It also won the joint secretary's position.
Earlier this year, Shantanu Shekhar won the presidency at the Patna University Students' Union, while Khushi Kumari secured the general secretary's post.
More recently, NSUI swept the student union polls at BGR Campus in Pauri of Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal Central University, winning the posts of president, vice-president, secretary, joint secretary and treasurer, besides three executive positions, PTI reported.
(With PTI inputs)
