56% students shy away from voting in DUSU election

New Delhi: Nearly 56 per cent voters skipped the polling across 51 centres in the morning leg of Delhi University Student Union (DUSU) elections on Tuesday.

The polling began for the four central posts of President, Vice President, Joint Secretary and Secretary at 8.30 a.m. amid tight security across all the centres and continued till 1 p.m. for the first session. The second round of voting, reserved for students of evening colleges, began at 3 p.m. and went till 7.30 p.m.

There was heavy police deployment in North Campus with the Chaatra Marg being made out of bound for regular traffic and public.

Chief Election Officer for DUSU elections, S B Babbar, said the voting went off peacefully with 44 per cent of students casting their vote in the morning leg of polls.

According to DUSU election committee, a large chunk of students turned out to vote since 10 am in the 41 morning colleges.

The official informed that 32 out of 41 morning colleges, voter turnout was 44 per cent, whereas total votes registered are 77, 379, out which only 34, 051 votes have been polled in the first phase of DUSU polling.

"We received calls from various colleges about a good number of students turning out to vote," said Babbar.

The election committee has deployed a total of 248 EVMs in all 41 morning colleges.

Voting at Shahid Bhagat Singh College started half an hour late in the morning due to some technical glitch in the EVMs.

According to sources, there was around 14 per cent polling in Aryabhatta College, 45 per cent in Shraddhanand College and 557 voted out of 1,594 in Bhagini Nivedita College. In Aditi Mahavidyalaya, out of 2,300 students, 690 voted.

The RSS' student wing ABVP, the Congress' NSUI and CPI-ML Liberation's AISA were seen making last minute efforts to garner votes for their candidates.

The main contestants for the DUSU's Presidential post are ABVP's Rajat Choudhary, NSUI's Rocky Tuseed, AISA's Parul Chauhan, independent candidate Raja Choudury and independent Alka.

"The counting will be held on Wednesday at around 8:30 am," an official said.