DUSU elections to be held on September 18; student outfits slam Rs 1 lakh bond rule for candidates

The Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) elections will be held on September 18 and the counting of votes will take place a day later, the university announced on Wednesday.

According to a DU notification, voting for day classes will be held from 8:30 am to 1 pm, while students of evening classes will cast their votes from 3 pm to 7:30 pm.

The last date for receipt of nomination papers, along with a demand draft of Rs 500 as an annual fee and a bond of Rs 1 lakh, is September 10 by 3 pm. Scrutiny of nomination papers will be carried out the same day at 3:15 pm, followed by the publication of the list of duly nominated candidates by 6 pm.


The deadline for withdrawing nominations is September 11 till noon, and the final list of candidates will be published by 5 pm the same day.

For DUSU posts, nomination papers must be submitted to the Office of the Chief Election Officer at the Conference Centre, opposite the Botany Department on North Campus, while nomination papers for Central Council seats must be submitted to the respective colleges or departments.

Meanwhile, student organisations said they are fully prepared for the DUSU polls, even as some outfits criticised the university's new guideline requiring a bond of Rs 1 lakh from candidates.

NSUI leader and present DUSU president Ronak Khatri told PTI, “We will announce our candidates soon. We will win the polls again this year and work for the betterment of the students. We will keep raising and fighting for the students’ issues.”

On the Rs 1 lakh bond, Khatri said, “We are against this move. This is a discriminatory move, as most of the students at DU belong to the lower middle class. This should be taken back.”

ABVP Delhi State Secretary Sarthak Sharma said they will fight the elections with full force claiming that it is the only organisation that works on the ground 365 days a year.

"ABVP is the only organisation that raises the real issues of the students...due to our protest, the administration has rolled back fee hikes and has made hostel allotment centralised. We will win the DUSU elections by 4-0,” Sharma said.

"We have submitted a memorandum to the Registrar today to take back the Rs 1 lakh bond condition. If our demand is not met, then we will launch a mass protest," he added.

AISA national president Neha said, “We already started preparing for the DUSU elections last month. We hope that this year’s polls will be held as per the Lyndoh Committee recommendations, and we will not see crores of rupees being spent and muscle power in the elections. We will contest the polls following all the rules and court directives.”

On the possibility of an alliance with other Left student organisations, she added, “We are in the discussion stage right now, and will try to forge an alliance to break the DU administration-ABVP nexus.”

Last year, the Delhi High Court withheld the counting of votes for the DUSU elections over defacement of public property during the election campaign. Later, the court permitted the counting of votes saying that its intention was to “reform, not punish”. The court had stalled the declaration of results until the defacement caused during the election campaign was cleaned.

In the 2024 DUSU polls, the Congress-backed NSUI made a comeback after a seven-year hiatus, winning two key positions -- president and joint secretary. The RSS-backed ABVP secured the vice president post and retained the secretary position, maintaining its presence in the union.

Ahead of this year’s elections, the university has issued guidelines to prevent the defacement of public property, with the Rs 1 lakh bond requirement forming a key part of the preventive measures.