The Delhi University Students’ Union elections conducted in two phases on Friday witnessed a low turnout in the morning as it registered only 35.89 per cent voting.
The second phase of the polling concluded at 7 pm statistics of which were not available till the filing of the story. The counting will be held on Saturday.
Chief Election Officer for DUSU elections DS Rawat said voting went off peacefully with 35.89 per cent of students casting their vote in the morning leg of polls.
“The elections in the morning from 8.30 am to 12.30 pm went off smoothly. The maximum turnout of 91 per cent was recorded at the Ayurvedic and Unani Tibbia College and the minimum was in Ramjas College at 13.34 per cent followed by Campus law Centre at 15 per cent,” he said.
A total of 17 candidates are in the fray for the four posts of DUSU office-bearers. While 7 candidates are in race for the post of president, 4 nominations have been validated for the post of vice-president.
With a total of 1,23,246 voters, polling is taking place at 117 booths in 51 colleges.
The main battle is between the Congress-affiliated NSUI and RSS’ student wing ABVP.
Students while waiting in long queues took selfies and spoke to the candidates about their action plan after winning the polls. A few students said they were glad that the university introduced the “none of the above” (NOTA) option, while some said the debate over “anti-nationalism versus nationalism” made them come out and vote.
“I am happy about DU introducing the NOTA option. Now we have a choice to not select a candidate if we do not like their agenda,” said Nikhil, a law student.
“I am not interested in politics, but after the anti- nationalism row on the campus, I felt the need to come out, voice my opinion, cast my vote and choose my leader,” said Prerna, another law student.
Apart from DUSU, which is an umbrella council, each college has its own students’ union to which separate elections are held.
The left-affiliated AISA is also vying for the central panel posts this time. The AAP’s student wing is not contesting the polls this year.
While four colleges/ faculty didn’t conduct their students’ union polls, many students kept away from the DUSU central panel polls. One of the reasons behind the low turnout is the policy of allowing only those students who took admission and paid their fees by August 31, 2016 to cast their votes.
In North Campus, there were very few voters at Ramjas College and law Faculty, which used to otherwise be the hub of activity during these time. Students turned away from colleges started posting messages in social media, expressing their dismay at not been allowed to exercise their franchise.
Another problem which came to fore during the polling was that due to the admissions going on till the end of August, many students were not issued their identity cards even after they submitting their ID card forms. Some students claimed that their ID cards were misplaced by the college. Some students with similar issues were also turned away by Dayal Singh College.
The DUSU election office, however, said the issue had to be resolved at the college level and the college principals should have taken appropriate steps as per the situation.
Minor technical glitch were reported from Sri Aurobindo College, which the technical team rectified within minutes. Kirori Mal College had to use both electronic voting machine as well as ballot papers. “We were given just five EVMs for 14 polling centres. We have around 5,500 voters and the EVMs were not adequate. Therefore we also made arrangement for ballot papers,” said an official. The college had the biggest turnout in the North Campus with over 50 per cent of the voters casting their votes by noon.