DUSU Election 2023: ABVP grabs 3 seats, NSUI gets 1; Tushar Dedha new students' union president

NEW DELHI: The RSS-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) once again won the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) Elections 2023 by grabbing three out of four seats. Tushar Dedha from Department of Buddhist Studies who contested from ABVP has been elected as per the president DUSU.

ABVP and NSUI were fighting neck-to-neck for the president and vice-president posts till the last round of counting. At the end of 18 rounds of counselling, ABVP candidate Tushar Dedha won the president post with a whooping 23,460 votes and NSUI candidate Abhi Dahiya got the vice-president position with a difference of 1,829 votes.

The DUSU Election 2023 results are similar to the 2019 polls. In the last election held in 2019, ABVP had grabbed three out of four seats and lost the secretary post to NSUI. Except this year, the NSUI won the DUSU vice-president position.

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The University recorded a voter turnout of 42% in the DUSU polls 2023 conducted yesterday. However, it failed to surpass the nearly 11-year-high figure of 2018 when the university recorded 44.46% voter turnout.

Twenty-four candidates contested in the DUSU polls. The ABVP, NSUI, CPI(M)-backed Students' Federation of India (SFI) and the CPI(ML)-Liberation-linked All India Students' Association (AISA) fielded candidates for all four central posts.

The DUSU is the main students’ representative body for most colleges and faculties. However, the election was conducted after four years. The polls were not held after 2019 due to COVID-19 and academic disruptions.

Around one lakh students who were eligible cast their vote at 52 colleges and departments through EVMs.

On Friday, the Congress-affiliated National Students' Union of India (NSUI) claimed to have won union elections in 17 colleges (day colleges) while the RSS-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) claimed victory in 34.

DUSU 2023 Winners

Voting for the DUSU elections concluded late on Friday and the result of all four central panel posts -- president, vice-president, secretary and joint secretary – was announced today. The counting began today at 8 AM. All candidates elected for the central posts are from the Department of Buddhist Studies.