The National Democratic Teachers’ Front candidate AK Bhagi on Thursday retained the post of Delhi University Teachers’ Association president, defeating the Democratic United Teachers’ Alliance’s Aditya Narayan Mishra.

Bhagi polled 4,182 votes while Mishra got 3,787. Out of more than 9,500 eligible voters, an impressive 8295 exercised their democratic rights. Total valid votes were 7969 and invalid stood at 326.

Bhagi said that his priority is to complete the regularisation scheme and introduce new policies such as the pension scheme and EWS seats.

“We are happy and excited to be the winners again. Our priority is to complete the regularisation scheme, which is in the halfway stage. We will also focus on completing the pending work that we started two years ago,” Bhagi said. “We will also focus on new policies such as the pension scheme and EWS seats,” he added.

Specifically referring to the 12 Delhi government funded colleges, Professor Bhagi emphasized that DUTA will pressurize the Delhi government to timely release grants and salaries to these colleges, otherwise DUTA will approach the Education Ministry and the UGC to request them to take these colleges under their direct control. Out of these 12 colleges, 11 have not even initiated the recruitment process. DUTA will make all efforts to get posts advertised in this colleges at the earliest

Nine organisations, including the Democratic Teachers’ Front, AAP-backed Academic for Action and Development Delhi Teachers’ Association, Indian National Teachers’ Congress, Delhi Teachers’ Initiative, Samajwadi Shikshak Manch, Common Teachers’ Front, Independent Teachers’ Front for Social Justice and the Voice of DU Ad Hocs — came together to form the Democratic United Teachers’ Alliance for this year’s Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) elections.