DUSU elections: ABVP one,three won

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.