Counting of votes in Delhi University Students Union election begins
New Delhi (PTI): Counting of votes for Delhi University Students Union elections began on Saturday and the results of all four central panel posts of president, vice-president, secretary and joint secretary are expected to be announced soon.
Twenty-four candidates are in the fray for the elections.
The DUSU elections were last held in 2019. The polls could not be held in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19 while possible disruptions to the academic calendar prevented their conduct in 2022.
Chander Shekhar -- the chief election officer for the polls -- said the university recorded a voter turnout of 42 per cent. Around one lakh students were eligible to vote in the election.
While the voting percentage was higher than in 2019 when a turnout of 39.90 per cent was recorded, it failed to surpass the nearly 11-year-high figure of 2018. The turnouts in 2018 and 2017 were 44.46 per cent and 42.8 per cent, respectively.
Elections at 52 colleges and departments for the central panel were conducted through EVMs while voting for the college union polls was on paper ballot.
For the students, core issues ranged from fee hikes to the lack of affordable accommodations, enhanced security during college fests and menstrual leaves.
As for many organisations backed by political parties, these polls are a way to gauge the mood of young voters. This year's elections assume significance as they were held just months before the Lok Sabha polls.
The Congress-affiliated National Students' Union of India (NSUI) has claimed to have won union elections in 17 colleges (day colleges) while the RSS-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) claimed victory in 34.
The ABVP, NSUI, CPI(M)-backed Students' Federation of India (SFI) and the CPI(ML)-Liberation-linked All India Students' Association (AISA) had fielded candidates for all four central posts. The ABVP won three of the four seats in the 2019 elections.
DUSU is the main representative body for most colleges and faculties. Each college also has its own students' union, elections to which are held annually.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
