The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad won three posts in the Delhi University Students’ Union elections, the results of which were announced on Friday, PTI reported. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliated student wing won the posts of president, vice president and joint secretary.

ABVP’s Akshit Dahiya defeated National Students Union of India’s Chetna Tyagi for the president’s post by a margin of more than 19,000 votes. The right-wing party’s Pradeep Tanwar won the post of vice president by a margin of 8,574 votes while Shivangi Kharwal won the joint secretary’s designation by 2,914 votes.

However, ABVP’s Yogit Rathi lost the union secretary post to NSUI’s Ashish Lamba by 2,053 votes.

“I congratulate all workers of ABVP for the grand victory in Delhi University student union elections,” ANI quoted Union Home Minister Amit Shah as saying. “This victory is not only proof of the unflinching belief in nationalism of our youth but also a proof of how committed new India is towards nation building.”

Bharatiya Janata Party Working President JP Nadda also congratulated the student organisation. “Congratulations to the ABVP for its historic win in the DUSU polls by bagging three seats,” he tweeted. “These youngsters are the our country’s future and every worker of the ABVP is dedicated to the society and organisation. This is a victory of nationalist ideology among students.”

The elections were held on Thursday. The elections were marred by allegations of malfunctioning electronic voting machines. The polls were contested by 16 candidates, including four women, with 52 polling centres being set up.

More than 1.3 lakh students were eligible to vote and as many as 144 EVMs were used for the student body elections and 137 for college union polls. Voter turnout for the student union polls was 39.90% – more than four percentage points lower than last year. In 2018’s DUSU elections, a 44.46% voter turnout was recorded.

For this year’s elections, the ABVP had appointed a class in-charge for each course in all the 51 DUSU-affiliated institutes. The student outfit’s state Secretary Siddharth Yadav said this was an attempt to help his organisation gain perspective about the problems of each student in the varsity, according to IANS.

Last year, the ABVP was criticised after it was revealed that its former president Ankiv Baisoya had submitted fake degrees to get admitted to Delhi University. The party suspended Baisoya and asked him to step down as the Delhi University Students’ Union president.

However, Yadav said the outgoing union dominated by ABVP had managed to do work efficiently and earned a good reputation among students. “Our president was disqualified, but then the rest of the DUSU and especially Shakti Singh, who was promoted from vice president to president, managed to reach students and stand up for their issues,” he added.

The party also presented a “vision document” instead of an election manifesto for the elections akin to what the Bharatiya Janata Party did for the national elections. ABVP released a three-year plan called ‘Vision 2022’ for the student elections this year.

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