An exercise was launched on Friday to remove all posters and banners put up by student organisations across Delhi University for the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) poll campaign.

The action comes a day after the Delhi High Court halted the counting of votes of Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) elections till all the defacement material, including posters, hoarding and graffiti, is removed and public property is restored.

Rajesh Singh, the returning officer for the elections, said, “The majority of the hoardings, posters, and banners violating the rules have been removed. The process to remove any other such posters is underway. We called a meeting of all the candidates contesting the elections and directed them to take down these materials,” Singh said.

Students who were on the campus to cast their votes said the campus is much cleaner now than in previous days. “Large banners and posters were almost entirely removed overnight,” a female student said, adding that the once-cluttered roads, crowded with oversized campaign posters, now appear clean.

On Thursday, a bench of Chief Justice-designate Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela said the election process may proceed but the counting of votes will not take place till the court is satisfied that defacement of property has been removed.

Namrata Jeph Meena, an NSUI nominee for the secretary post, said, “After the court order, we started cleaning the campus. It took double the effort to remove the posters and banners.” 

“While putting up the posters and banners, we pasted them wherever we found empty space. But when it came to removing them, we had to search for our own posters and banners, which took almost half the night,” she added.

With the polls underway, the atmosphere on campus is charged, with students displaying a mix of excitement and nervous anticipation about the results.

The Delhi High Court has said officials of Delhi University and its colleges have failed to appreciate the true import of the Lyngdoh Committee guidelines which prohibit defacement of public property and use of printed posters during the students union elections.

The court said the officials of Delhi University and colleges have neglected the enforcement of the Lyngdoh Committee guidelines.  A bench of Chief Justice-designate Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela made the observations in its September 26 order, uploaded on Friday, in which the court halted the counting of votes of the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections till all the defacement material, including posters, hoarding and graffiti are removed and public property is restored.