[Reader-list] DUSU elections: Left fails yes again, ABVP wins

[Aditya Raj Kaul]

DUSU elections: ABVP one, three won
*Deepu Sebastian Edmond**Indian Express*

*New Delhi* Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the students’ wing of BJP,
may have won only the lone seat it was contesting but can claim to have won
the day as the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) election results were
announced on Saturday.

Both the president-elect, Manoj Choudhary (Independent) and joint
secretary-elect Anupriya Tyagi of Samajwadi Chathra Sabha claimed that they
had won with ABVP support.

Kriti Wadhera, the lone ABVP candidate left after three of its top four
contestants were disqualified for flouting code of conduct norms, easily won
the vice-president’s post. Wadhera, a Miranda House student, polled 2,546
votes more than her nearest candidate — Anurag Sharma, a Department of
Buddhist Studies student contesting as an Independent.

Arshdeep Kaur, the lone candidate in the panel for Congress-affiliated
National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), will be the next DUSU secretary.
Significantly, three of the four top DUSU office-bearers would now be women.


While results for the other three posts were lopsided, with the winners
galloping home by a wide margin, the president’s post was closely fought.
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.

NSUI’s Kaur won by the largest margin: 4,181 votes.

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

*Doubts remain*

But as reported by Newsline on Friday, the new DUSU panel runs the risk of
losing its top three office-bearers for the year after the university’s
chief election officer, Gurmeet Singh, declared that the candidates served
showcause notices on Thursday are liable to be disqualified if found guilty
in the inquiry of violating poll code during campaigning.

Choudhary, Wadhera and Kaur are all facing inquiry.

*Left left out*

What the results also highlight is the students’ complete rejection of the
Left-backed organisations, who failed to capitalise despite ABVP and NSUI
each having had three out of four candidates debarred.

The radical Left All India Students’ Association (AISA), which was eyeing a
full-panel, could not even come third for any seat. The CPI (M)-affiliated
Students’ Federation of India, in fact, fared better, coming on top of its
bitter rival AISA in two of the three seats it contested.

Instead, smaller students’ organisations like the INSO and the ASOI made
significant gains.

 *The ‘A’ factor*

The second-placed candidate for president’s post, Bajinder Singh of AISF,
was a surprise package but indications are Singh, whose name was first in
the candidates’ list, gained from undecided “floating votes”.

In fact, all candidates placed first in the voting list fared well: while
both Arshdeep Kaur and Anupriya Tyagi won, Anurag Sharma (Independent) came
second for vice-president. Interestingly, ABVP’s disqualified candidate
Rohit Chahal, had changed his name to ‘Aa Rohit Chahal’ to be on top of the
list and catch the undecided voters.


-- 
Aditya Raj Kaul