Congress student’s wing NSUI on Saturday won the Delhi University Students Union President’s post while candidates of BJP’s ABVP swept the other three top posts of the body.

National Student’s Union of India nominee Ajay Chikara won the President’s post of the DUSU, while Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad candidate Vikas Choudhary was elected as the Vice-president of the student’s body in the low-turnout elections that were held on Friday.

Ajay Chikara defeated his nearest rival Neha Singh of ABVP by a margin of 2,357 votes. While Chikara polled 11,164 votes, Singh got 8,807 votes. The posts of Vice President, Secretary and Joint Secretary were all won by the ABVP, whose campaign was centered on alleged corruption in the Congress-led UPA Government.

Vikas Choudhary polled 11,855 votes, while NSUI’s Bhupinder Choudhary got 8,075 votes in the elections to the Vice President’s post. In the contest for the Secretary’s post, ABVP’s Vikas Yadav won by a margin of 2,351 votes defeating his nearest rival of NSUI’s Parag Sharma. ABVP’s Deepak Bansal will be the new Joint Secretary of the DUSU as he trounced his NSUI rival Asish Choudhary by 2,105 votes.

As many as 41 candidates fought for the four top posts of the student’s body, but the main contest was between the NSUI and ABVP, the two major participants.

The Congress indicated that it could go it alone in the assembly polls in Assam scheduled to be held soon.

“As of now, there are no plans of any pre-poll alliance”, party general secretary Digvijay Singh told mediapersons.

The NSUI and ABVP announced their candidates for the September 3 Delhi University Students Union election, as the last date for withdrawing of nominations ended today leaving 41 contestants in the fray. Harish Choudhary, a student of SGBT Khalsa College, is NSUI’s candidate for the post of president while Jitender Choudhary of MA (Budhist Studies) will be his rival from the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad.

A total of 11 candidates will compete for the post of president in the election which will see a total of 30 other candidates vie for the three posts of Vice President, Secretary and Joint Secretary.

For the post of Vice President AA Vardhan Choudhary of NSUI will be in direct contest with ABVP’s Priya Dabas.

Gurmeet Singh, DU’s Chief Election Officer, said a total of 190 students, including 53 for president and 47 for vice president, had filed nomination papers on Tuesday, but after withdrawal by many and disqualification of some 41 remain in fray.

“Out of this 11 are for President, 10 for Secretary, and 9 each for Vice President and Joint Secretary,” he said.

Fifty-three candidates  filed their nominations for the post of the President of Delhi University Students Union election, which will be held on September 3. The Chief Election Officer of DUSU said besides 53 names received for the post of President, 47 students filed nominations for the post of Vice President, 43 for Secretary and 47 again for Joint Secretary.

While four candidates of National Students Unions of India filed their nominations, 10 students of its rival Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) submitted their papers.

NSUI, which for the first time picked up its four candidates through an election process instead of nominations, said it would come out with a detailed manifesto on Friday.

Manoj Chaudhury of Department of Buddhist Studies won the president’s post while ABVP’s Kirti Vadhera (Miranda House) bagged the Vice President’s post.

Manoj Choudhary, in the end, had only an 11-vote advantage over his classmate from the Department of Buddhist Studies Bajinder Singh. The second-placed All India Students’ Federation (AISF) candidate got 5,380 votes.

Kirti Wadhera,polled 2,546 votes more than her nearest candidate — Anurag Sharma, a Department of Buddhist Studies student contesting as an Independent.

NSUI’s Ashradeep Kaur (Campus Law Centre) won the post of Secretary while Samajwadi Chatra Sabha’s Anupriya Tyagi (Hansraj College) bagged the post of Joint Secretary.

Ashradeep  Kaur won by the largest margin: 4,181 votes.

Manoj Choudhary, incidentally, is the first Independent DUSU president since Rajiv Goswami of the Mandal agitation fame won with NSUI support in 1991.

Voting to decide the fate of 29 candidates for the four Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) posts began on a dull note this morning.Then there are the college representatives. Over 60 colleges of the university participate in the DUSU elections.

The polling for the colleges where classes are held in the mornings started at 8.30 a.m. and will end at 12.30 p.m. For evening colleges, the timings will be 3-7 p.m.

This year’s DUSU elections are being held amid controversy over disqualification of several frontline student leaders’ candidature for flouting the recommendations of a panel headed by former chief election commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh.
The Delhi High Court had on Tuesday dismissed the petition of five candidates, who had challenged their disqualification.

The high court had dismissed the plea of Deepak Negi of the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), Rohit Chahal of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) for the president’s post; Umesh Tomar (NSUI) for vice-president; Lalit Kumar (ABVP) for secretary and Ashok Khare (ABVP) for joint secretary.

A plea filed by five disqualified Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) poll candidates from National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) was dismissed by the Delhi High Court on Tuesday.

Stating that the chief election officer had taken the decision in accordance with the rules, justice Sanjeev Khanna rejected the plea filed by Deepak Negi and Umesh Tomar of NSUI and Rohit Chahal, Lalit Kumar and Ashok Khare of ABVP. Negi and Chahal were candidates for president’s post. While Tomar was aiming for vice-president, Kumar was a candidate for post of secretary and Khare for joint secretary.

Justice Khanna dismissed the petitions of the five candidates saying the decision to disqualify them from contesting the poll was taken by following an appropriate procedure. “I do not think principles of natural justice have been violated,” Justice Khanna said. “The university, before taking any action, had issued showcause notices.”

As per the allegations, their candidature was cancelled after the five were found spending more money than the fixed amount of Rs 5,000 each, using cars and organising rallies for their election campaigns which was against the former chief election commissioner J M Lyngdoh’s recommendations.

The Delhi University Students’ Union election would be held on September 4 between 8.30 am and 12.30 pm for day classes, and 3 to 7 pm for evening classes. The last date for filling of nominations is August 25. On the same day, there will be scrutiny of nomination papers and the deadline for the withdrawal of nominations would be 12 noon on August 27.

The DU Vice-Chancellor has appointed Gurmeet Singh and J M Khurana of the Department of Chemistry as the chief election officer and the chief returning officer respectively. Nomination papers of candidates running for posts of DUSU office bearers must be submitted at the office of the Chief Election Officer.

The counting will be done on the following day but the time and venue for it will be announced later.

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) on Saturday wrested the president’s post of Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) from National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) after six years. However, NSUI managed to retain the other important posts of vice-president, secretary and joint secretary.

Defeating her NSUI rival Sonia Sapra of Shaheed Bhagat Singh College, ABVP’s Nupur Sharma of Law Centre-1 won the coveted seat by a close margin of 1,739 votes. Sharma polled 10,345 votes, while Sapra managed 8,606.

For the secretary’s post, Amit Choudhary of NSUI managed to defeat his nearest rival, ABVP’s Anupriya Yadav, by 611 votes.
For the vice-president’s position, Manohar Naagar, with 8,804 votes, defeated ABVP’s Vasu Rukhar by 848 votes.

Ashish Gahlot of NSUI had a smooth sailing over his ABVP rival, Mukesh Kumar, registering a win with 3,830 votes for the joint secretary seat.

Restrictions by Delhi University (DU) on expenditure and campaigning methods for DU students union (DUSU) elections to be held on September 5, next few days in DU are going to be high on political fervour.

The real action of DUSU elections may be visible outside the campus. Most parties say they would not flout rules but admit that printed posters, canvassing on vehicles and the usual sops for students – such as free movie tickets, booze parties – will all be available beyond the campus.

National Students Union of India (NSUI) started making its presence felt by inviting celebrities like film director Mahesh Bhatt and actor Riya Sen on the campus on Thursday.

Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) candidates will start reaching out to students from Monday while other parties will shortly be deciding on their course of campaigning.