ABVP dominates DUSU polls; Aryan Maan elected President, NSUI secures VP post

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, swept the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) polls on Friday, with Aryan Maan elected president and the ABVP also clinching the secretary and joint secretary posts.

Maan bagged the top post after defeating nine other candidates who contested for the position. He secured 28,841 votes, way ahead of the 12,645 votes garnered by National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) candidate Joslyn Nandita Choudhary. He took over the seat from NSUI’s Ronak Khatri, who held the post last year.

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Rahul Jhansla of the Congress-backed NSUI clinched the Vice President’s post with 29,339 votes, defeating ABVP’s Govind Tanwar (20,547). ABVP’s Bhanu Pratap Singh earlier held the post.

The ABVP maintained its hold on the other two DUSU administrative positions, with Kunal Chaudhary (23,779) winning the Secretary’s post and Deepika Jha (21,825) the Joint Secretary post.

The Delhi University elections recorded a turnout of 39.45 per cent on Thursday, with over 1.55 lakh of the 2.75 lakh eligible students casting their votes. Polling was held across 52 centres with 195 booths, where 711 EVMs were deployed.

Polling was conducted in two phases — from 8:30 am to 1 pm and 3 pm to 7:30 pm — on Thursday. Though turnout was sluggish at the start, it gathered pace as the day progressed, with the evening session limited to eight colleges.

A defining feature of this year’s poll was the focus on women-centric issues, with Choudhary contesting for the top post after a hiatus of 17 years. Nupur Sharma of the ABVP was the last elected woman president of DU.

The only woman candidate in the DUSU elections was Jha, who hails from Bihar and won the Joint Secretary post. Speaking to a news agency, she said, “This is not just my victory, it is the victory of all the students of DU, especially those who are migrants and are studying and living in DU… I give all credit to the ABVP and the students of DU for their support.”