The much-awaited results of DAV (PG) College students' union election were declared on Monday with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) candidate trouncing the National Students Union (NSUI) of India candidate in the poll for the post of the students' union president. Following Congress's recent victories in all the three Assembly by-polls and the Panchayat elections, many expected the NSUI would perform well in the DAV (PG) College students' union election.
However, the ABVP candidate Paras Goyal was elected to the post of president, defeating NSUI candidate Navdeep Negi by 1,775 votes while Aryan Group candidate Jagbeer Singh was elected general secretary of the union. The candidates put up by ABVP have been wining the students' union election to the post of president in the college for the past eight years. The candidates put up by Aryan Group too keep winning the election for the post of general secretary for the past many years.
Moreover, two female candidates — Monika and Anita Negi — of Students' Federation of India (SFI) won the election for the post of university representative and treasurer respectively. In a low turnout as compared to many other colleges in Dehradun where the elections were held recently, 22.71 per cent of the voters had cast votes in the students' union election in DAV (PG) College held on Saturday.
To ensure peaceful counting of votes, police had made elaborate security arrangements at counting venue, as well as outside the college campus. Police had erected barricades at the crossings, resulting in traffic snarl that inconvenienced the commuters.
The counting of votes began at 10 pm and results were declared by 1 pm. Amid tight security, victory rally was allowed for the triumphant candidates, but it was restricted by police at Survey Chowk. No rally was allowed within the college campus. The triumphant candidates led the rally that went outside the college campus. The jubilant students were found dancing on drum beats.
Meanwhile, in order to conduct this election in a free, fair, transparent manner, the college election officer RK Pathak had deployed college staff members as counting officers. In each round of the counting, ABVP candidate Paras Goyal remained ahead of his NSUI rival Navdeep Negi by around three or four hundred votes. After the final round of counting, Goyal was declared elected to the post of president. He secured 2,873 votes, while Negi secured 1,098 votes.
Similarly, Aryan Group candidate Jagbeer Singh kept edging past Satyam Group candidate Sandeep Sharma in each round of counting. Finally, Singh won the election to the post of general secretary, defeating Sharma by 500 votes. Singh secured 1,581 votes, while Sharma got 1,081 votes. Shubham Singh Thakur stood third, securing 904 votes followed by Vikas Bhatt with 406 votes.
Finding ABVP and Aryan Group candidates surging ahead of their rivals, their supporters began raising slogans and dancing on drum beats. SFI candidate Anita Negi who secured 2,568 votes defeated Prashant Raturi by 1,268 votes for the post of treasurer.
Independent candidate Balam Singh won the election to the post of vice president. He secured 1,671 votes followed by Sushma Chauhan with 953 votes followed by Harish Kumar, Komal Chauhan and Pankaj Mehra.
Independent candidate Vandana Gusain won the election for the post of joint secretary. She defeated Sagar by 469 votes. Gusain got 2,165 votes while Sagar secured 1,696 votes.
In a close contest, SFI candidate Monika won the election for the post of university representative by 22 votes. She defeated Shivang Uniyal by securing 1,111 votes. Uniyal got 1,089 votes. Rakesh Rawat stood third, securing 888 votes followed by Arun Bisht.
It should be mentioned here that a total of 21 candidates were in the fray for various posts- president, vice president, general secretary, joint secretary, university representative and treasurer of the students' union election in the college. As many as 17,674 students were listed as voters and around 22.57 per cent voters cast votes in the election.