MS Varsity student union polls: third front, NSUI win key posts, ABVP loses

The student union elections, which were held on Friday, at MS University in Baroda saw a third front and NSUI candidates winning key positions and ABVP drawing a blank.

The Vice President's post, which is reserved for a woman candidate, was won by Saloni Mishra of the student union Jai Ho with 6856 votes, defeating NSUI’s candidate Zeel Brahmbhatt by a margin of 665 votes. ABVP’s Anisha Mishra trailed behind with 1,285 votes.

Jai Ho was formed by former NSUI member Priyanka Patel, who had won the General Secretary election in 2015. She parted ways with NSUI later and started her own group.

NSUI’s Vraj Patel was elected as the General Secretary with 6,727 votes, accounting to 41.62% votes. Vraj beat the third front candidate Harshal Choudhary by 664 votes while ABVP’s candidate Rahul Zinzala only garnered 7.56% votes.

Interestingly, more students voted for NOTA than for ABVP for both posts, indicating the disenchantment of students towards the BJP's student wing.

The student organisations were fighting for 41,887 votes in 14 faculties and four colleges affiliated to the varsity. In the elections held on Friday, 16,490 (39.36%) cast their vote. The highest number of votes was reported from the Faculty of Commerce, followed by Faculty of Science followed by Faculty of Technology and Engineering.

The voter turn out has increased compared to last year. The casting of votes began at 10 am which went on till 1 pm and the counting began after 3 pm. While in 2017, NSUI had failed to register a single win, ABVP was elected to the key post of the VP but failed to retain any this year.

In 2017, NSUI had failed to win any seat and an ABVP candidate was elected to the key post of the VP. In 2016, Congress’s NSUI had retained the key posts of vice-president and general secretary.