College elections seldom reflect the nation’s electoral mood. However, the Delhi University Students Union election somehow ends up being the marker for Lok Sabha polls.
BJP president Amit Shah congratulated the winning ABVP candidates saying it was a mandate of youth against divisive and opportunistic politics.
"Heartiest congratulations to all the workers of the ABVP on the great victory in the Delhi University Students Union election. This victory is not just a victory of youth's faith in the nationalist ideology, but also a mandate of youth against divisive and opportunistic politics," Shah said. He will be heartened to know, that ABVP's strong performance often reflects in a winning run for NDA as well.
In the past five occasions, starting from 1997 DUSU election and 1998 Lok Sabha polls, the side which won DUSU has gone on to win the subsequent general elections.
Of course, it ought to be pointed out that the ABVP is affiliated to RSS and not the BJP but whenever the ABVP has done well at DUSU, the results have reflected at the Centre with a strong performance by BJP.
In 1997, ABVP won all four posts at the Delhi University Students Union, which was followed by BJP-led NDA winning the Lok Sabha polls in 1998 that saw Atal Bihari Vajpayee becoming PM.
ABVP won 2 seats in the DUSU election winning the president and general secretary posts and the NDA returned in 1999.
On the other hand, in 2003, the Cong student body NSUI won all four DUSU posts, which was followed by UPA vanquishing NDA in 2004.
In 2008, the ABVP won the president’s post and lost the other three and this was reflected in the Lok Sabha polls as the UPA came back to power.
However, in 2013, ABVP won three out of four seats, winning the president, vice-president and joint secretary. This was followed by the BJP-led NDA juggernaut winning 325 seats.
Now in 2018, a year before of the general elections, the ABVP has repeated that result. So will NDA continue the run? Or will a united Opposition stop the Modi-Shah duo? Only time will tell if this particularly interesting karmic connection continues.
In numbers
DUSU 1997 - ABVP wins all four posts
Lok Sabha 1998 - NDA comes to power in centre
DUSU 1998 - ABVP wins president and gen sec
Lok Sabha 1999 - NDA returns to power
DUSU 2003 - NSUI sweeps all four posts
Lok Sabha 2004 - UPA beats NDA
DUSU 2008 - ABVP wins president's post, NSUI wins other posts
Lok Sabha 2009 - UPA returns to power for second term
DUSU 2013 - ABVP wins three of four seats
Lok Sabha 2014 - NDA romps home with 325 seats DUSU 2018
DUSU 2018 - ABVP wins three posts except for secretary
Lok Sabha 2019 - ?
ABVP romps home winning 3 out of fours seats
The ABVP, the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, Thursday bagged three posts, including that of the president, in the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) elections.
The Congress-backed NSUI won only one seat, while the AAP's student wing CYSS which fought the elections in alliance with Left-backed AISA failed to open its account.
ABVP's Ankiv Basoya won the presidential post with a margin of 1,744 votes while party's candidate Shakti Singh was declared as the vice president after he won with a margin of 7,673 votes. NSUI's Akash Choudhary won the secretary's post while ABVP's Jyoti emerged victorious on the joint secretary post.
Basoya got 20,467 votes while his rival NSUI's Sunny Chhillar got 18,723 votes. Singh received 23,046 votes against NSUI rival Leena's 15,373 votes.
The All India Students Association (AISA) and the Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS) presidential candidate Abhigyan got 8,019 votes. Their vice-presidential candidate Anshika Singh, a student of Dyal Singh College, got 7,335 votes.
The alliance's candidate for the post of secretary, Chandramani Dev, a student of Law Centre-II, got 452 votes, while 6,810 students selected NOTA in the election for the post.
Sunny Tanwar, a student of PGDAV College, who contested for the post of joint secretary secured 9,199 votes.
Choudhary, the lone winning candidate of the NSUI, alleged that fair elections were not conducted and data of seven EVMs were missing.
The Chief Electoral Officer in Delhi Thursday clarified that the EVMs used in DUSU elections have not been issued by the Election Commission and it seems to have been procured privately. The counting had to be suspended for few hours following glitch in the EVMs but was resumed in the evening amid heavy police deployment.
The NSUI demanded fresh polling, while the ABVP demanded resumption of counting.
"There are only 8 candidates so how is it possible that votes were cast to a 10th candidate? All the machines were fine yesterday. Police and administration are involved in this," Fairoz Khan, NSUI president, alleged.
Later, all candidates came to an agreement on resumption of counting.
Celebrations broke out with the bursting of crackers and loud cheering at the Kingsway camp counting venue as the results were announced. The supporters lifted the victorious candidates on their shoulders and posed for photos flashing the 'victory' sign.
While the battle for DUSU has mainly been the contest between the NSUI and the ABVP for years, the Left-affiliated AISA and Aam Aadmi Party's CYSS entered into an alliance and also vied for the central panel posts this time.
Amid heavy police presence and some last-minute wooing of voters, DUSU polls were held yesterday with a voter turnout of 44.46 per cent.
Polling took place at 52 centres in the colleges. There were as many as 23 candidates in the fray. 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.
Though Delhi University officially does not recognise any political outfit, students who contest the polls are backed by different parties.
The polls have been keenly contested over decades and are seen as a stepping stone to mainstream politics.
Union minister Arun Jaitley, Congress leader Ajay Maken, former Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay, Union minister and BJP leader Vijay Goel are some of the prominent politicians whose journey into mainstream politics began from DUSU.
With inputs from PTI
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