NSUI makes a comeback in DUSU polls

New Delhi: Making a stunning comeback, the National Students Union of India (NSUI) of Congress won the top posts of president and vice-president in the Dusu polls at a time when the parent party’s moral was at its lowest.

The BJP-backed ABVP bagged the posts of secretary and joint secretary. Initially, it was declared that NSUI had won three posts, but later the election office “revised” its result.

The NSUI said that it would approach the Delhi high court to challenge the result “manipulated by the right-wing ABVP”. The party alleged that after it won three seats, the ABVP protested and demanded recounting which was done off cameras. 

NSUI’s Rocky Tuseed polled 16,299 votes and won the president’s post by a margin of 1,590 votes, defeating ABVP’s Rajat Chaudhary, while party’s Kunal Sehrawat defeated ABVP candidate Parth Rana by 175 votes for the post of vice-president.

ABVP’s Mahamedha Nagar defeated NSUI’s Minakshi Meena by 2,624 votes to win the post of the secretary, while party’s joint secretary candidate Uma Shankar defeated NSUI’s Avinash Yadav by 342 votes

The NSUI has won the Dusu president’s post five years after it had won it in 2012. Since then, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has been dominating the Delhi University Students’ Union (Dusu) elections in a straight contest with the NSUI.

The ABVP, which held three posts in the outgoing panel, secured the seats of secretary and joint secretary. When the counting started on Wednesday morning, the ABVP was leading on all posts. However, the NSUI took a surprise lead mid-way staging a comeback.

New Dusu president Mr Tuseed till four days before the election, was unsure whether he would be contesting or not as his nomination for the presidential post was rejected by the DU chief election officer on grounds of disciplinary action on September 6. He had then approached the Delhi high court, which on Septe-mber 8, had allowed him to contest. The next date of hearing in the matter is September 28. His election to the post of president is still provisional.

The Delhi University boost for the Congress comes after its disappointing performance at the JNU, where more students voted for Nota than the NSUI. The student election victory was seized by top Congress leaders who held it up as a sign of a revival of the party’s appeal among students and the youth.