40% vote in DUSU polls, results by Friday afternoon

Around 40 per cent of the 1.3 lakh eligible students voted in the elections to the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) on Thursday.

The counting of votes will take place on Friday and results are expected by the afternoon. Votes would be counted at the Community Hall of the Police Lines in northwest Delhi's Kingsway Camp, DU Chief Election Officer Ashok Prasad said.

With four females, 16 candidates were in the fray for the four DUSU posts.

Both the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and the National Students Union of India (NSUI) claim to have drawn votes for their candidates. The left-supported AISA is also hoping to win at least one DUSU post.

EVMs were delivered to the polling centres on Wednesday with strict security arrangements in place.

The RSS-affiliated ABVP had fielded Akshit Dahiya for the post of DUSU president, Pradeep Tanwar for vice-president, Yogit Rathee for general secretary and Shivangi Kherwal for joint secretary.

The NSUI pitted Chetna Tyagi for the post of president, Ankit Bharti for vice-president, Ashish Lamba for secretary and Abhishek Chaprana for joint secretary.

The ABVP had won three posts, while the NSUI had won one post in the last year's polls, which had recorded 44.46 per cent voter turnout.

However, in the college students unions, both the ABVP and the NSUI claimed to have won the majority. Where ABVP claimed to have won over 48 seats in 51 colleges, with their 17 panels wining the elections.

"We have won majority of seats in colleges' students' union. The NSUI has been spreading lies that they have won more seats. They have even projected our winning candidates as their's," said Siddharth Yadav, state ABVP secretary.

The NSUI too alleged that the ABVP has been spreading lies and dared it to prove their claims. "I challenge them to prove any name in our list that belonged to their student wing," said NSUI state president Akshay Lakra.

NSUI claims to lead students' union of 22 colleges.