Delhi: RSS’ student outfit ABVP maintained its dominance in DUSU polls bagging three seats including that of President, while Congress’ NSUI made a comeback by winning the Joint Secretary’s post in the results announced today.

Amit Tanwar is the new President of Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) while ABVP’s Priyanaka and Ankit Singh have been elected as Vice President and Secretary respectively, according to the Chief Election Officer for DUSU elections, D S Rawat.

NSUI candidate Mohit Garid won the Joint Secretary’s seat, preventing a hat-trick by ABVP which had bagged all the four seats in the DUSU polls last year as well as in 2014.

AAP’s Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti, which was defeated last year in its debut, did not contest the polls this year.

A significant number of 17,712 NOTA votes which were introduced for the first time in DUSU polls, were also exercised by the students.

In the keenly contested President’s post, Amit Tanwar got 16,357 votes defeating NSUI candidate Nikhil Yadav by a margin of 4,680 votes, Rawat said.

Priyanka, who is the lone girl in the elected panel, obtained 15,592 votes. She defeated her closest rival by a margin of 2,455 votes votes.

Ankit Singh Sangwan, who won the Secretary’s post got 15,518 votes. He won by a margin of 1,383 votes.

NSUI’s winning candidate Mohit Garid garnered the maximum votes in the elected panel at 16,526 votes, winning the seat by a margin of 2466 votes.

Celebrations broke out with supporters of the winning candidates dancing to the drumbeats and distributing sweets outside the counting centre.

The winners were garlanded and procession were taken out by ABVP supporters who paid tributes at Swami Vivekanand’s statue in the Arts Faculty of the university.

DUSU is the representative body of the students from most colleges and faculties. Apart from DUSU, which is an umbrella council, each college also has its own students’ union for which they hold separate elections.

Last year, the DUSU polls were swept by BJP-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) trouncing Congress’ National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) and AAP’s Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS) to bag all four positions — president, vice president, secretary and joint secretary.

While the political slugfest at DU has over the decades been between Congress-affiliated National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) and RSS’ student wing Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), left-affiliated All India Students Association (AISA) was vying for the central panel posts with a series of campaigns done by the outfit in recent months to thwart alleged attempts of attacks on university campuses across the country. The AAP’s student wing was not contesting the polls this year.

Though Delhi University officially does not recognise any political outfit, students who contest the polls are backed by different political parties.

“A total of 17 candidates were in fray for the four posts of DUSU office-bearers. While 7 candidates were in race for the post of President, 4 nominations had been validated for the post of Vice-President,” D S Rawat, Chief Election Commissioner for DUSU polls said.

The elections for the student body took place on September 9 in two phases across 117 booths set up at 51 colleges of the university. With a total of 1,23,246 voters, the voting took place across 51 colleges of the university from morning to evening. The timings for voting for the students of morning colleges was from 8.30 AM to 12.30 PM, while the students of evening colleges it was from 3 PM to 7 PM. 300 EVMs were used for the elections. Long queues were witnessed outside colleges. The voters were seen speaking to candidates about what they intend to do for them, and taking selfies. NOTA option was there in EVMs. Over 36 per cent out of a total of 1,23,246 voters had cast their votes.

With inputs from PTI