DUSU polls: ABVP sweeps 3 key posts in high-stakes contest, NSUI loses ground

New Delhi: The RSS-affiliated ABVP on Saturday retained the posts of president, secretary and joint secretary in the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) polls, decimating the Congress-backed NSUI in a high-stakes contest that unfolded in the backdrop of a recent Gen Z-led protest and the Satya Niketan building collapse that claimed the lives of five DU students.

Independent candidate Deepanshu Shokeen, who had filed his nomination on an NSUI ticket, but was later denied a ticket by the outfit, sprang a surprise by winning the vice-president's post with a big margin of 13,705 votes.

The National Students' Union of India (NSUI) drew a blank, though its candidates lost the posts of president and joint secretary by narrow margins.


The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) registered an emphatic victory, with its candidate Yash Dabas bagging the president's post.

The AISA-SFI alliance's candidates finished with lesser votes than the NOTA tally in the race for at least two of the four central-panel positions.

The All India Students' Association (AISA) and the Students' Federation of India (SFI) were among the Left student organisations that participated in the mobilisation at Jantar Mantar, with AISA activists, including its president Neha Bora, also joining a prolonged hunger strike during the agitation.

In the presidential race, Dabas polled 24,576 votes, defeating the NSUI's Vijai Shankar Meena by a margin of 2,053 votes.

Shokeen won the vice-president's post with 30,615 votes.

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For the joint secretary's post, the ABVP candidate secured 16,615 votes against 15,778 votes polled by the Samajwadi Chhatra Sabha (SCS) candidate.

For the secretary's post, the ABVP candidate polled 21,650 votes, while the NSUI candidate secured 14,869 votes.

The ABVP managed to regain the posts of president, secretary and joint secretary, which it won in 2025 as well. The NSUI, which won the vice president's post last year, could not bag a single post.

The independents, including Shokeen and Vishesh Yadav, put up an impressive show. They managed to affect the results by cutting into a sizeable number of votes of both the ABVP and the NSUI.

While Shokeen defeated both ABVP's Ishu Maurya and NSUI's Vir Chatrath by a huge margin, Yadav of the SCS obtained 15,778 votes in the contest for the joint secretary's post.

ABVP's Lakshya Raj Singh won the joint secretary's post by obtaining 16,615 votes, while NSUI's Gopal Chaudhary got 15,206 votes and was positioned third in the contest.

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The AISA-SFI alliance's presidential candidate, Ananya Raturi, polled 5,377 votes, 1,067 more than the 4,310 votes recorded for NOTA.

For the secretary's post, the alliance's Stanzin Deskyong secured 8,734 votes, compared to 7,884 votes for NOTA, a difference of just 850 votes.

The pattern was reversed in the other two contests. For vice-president, AISA-SFI candidate Akshat Shikhar polled 2,383 votes, while NOTA received 4,359 votes -- 1,976 more than the Left candidate.

Cheers and slogans filled the area outside the DU's Arts Faculty as ABVP supporters gathered to celebrate the outfit's victory.

Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, who herself was the DUSU president in 1996-97, congratulated the newly-elected office-bearers of the ABVP, saying the support from youngsters was a stamp of their unwavering faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership and the resolve for a developed India.

Newly-elected DUSU president Dabas said his first task would be a safety audit of all college hostels and paying-guest accommodation, while vice-president Shokeen vowed to seek justice for those killed in the Satya Niketan building collapse.

"This victory belongs to social harmony, patriotism and unity," Dabas said.

Shokeen said he walked barefoot throughout the campaign following the Satya Niketan building collapse, in which seven people including five DU students died. He said he will not wear shoes until justice is delivered to the students affected by the tragedy.

Ratna Singh, a leader of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) that led the Jantar Mantar protest in June, said the agitation was aimed at seeking redressal of the NEET paper "leak" three months ago.

"After the Jantar Mantar protest, we have been actively addressing other issues related to students and youngsters like the condition of schools. The DUSU polls were a different space that we did not directly engage with," she told PTI.

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Vijay Goel, who served as the DUSU president in 1977-78 after the lifting of the Emergency, asserted that the Gen-Z protests at Jantar Mantar and some other parts of the country were not against the saffron party or its government at the Centre.

"The Jantar Mantar protest was basically against the NEET paper-leak issue, which the government finally addressed and resolved. You cannot say that the youngsters were against the BJP or the government," he told PTI.

Congress national secretary and co-in-charge of the party's affairs in Karnataka, Ajay Dutt, claimed that the NSUI candidate for the DUSU president's post was leading the contest by around 500 votes even in the last rounds, "but the BJP misused the administration to influence the results".