DUSU Election 2026: NSUI leads presidential race as independent candidates gain ground
New Delhi: The Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) election counting showed a closely divided contest after the third round on Saturday, with the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) leading the presidential race, while the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) was ahead in the Secretary contest. Independent candidates held the lead in the Vice-President and Joint Secretary races.
In the presidential contest, NSUI candidate Vijay Shankar Meena was leading with 3,571 votes after three rounds. He was 441 votes ahead of ABVP candidate Yash Dabas, who had secured 3,130 votes. Left-backed candidate Ananya Raturi was in third place with 653 votes.
Meena secured 859 votes in the third round, compared with 682 for Dabas.
The Vice-President contest saw independent candidate Deepanshu Shokeen establish a substantial lead. He secured 1,008 votes in the third round, taking his cumulative tally to 4,264.
ABVP's Ishu Maurya was in second place with 2,389 votes, followed by NSUI's Veer Chatrath with 664 votes. Left candidate Akshat Shikhar had 282 votes.
ABVP candidate Riya Chhawdi was leading the Secretary contest with 2,805 votes after three rounds. She added 659 votes in the third round.
NSUI candidate Namrata Chaudhary was second with 2,332 votes, while Left-backed candidate Stanzin Deskyong had 1,225 votes.
The Joint Secretary contest remained close, with independent candidate Vishesh Yadav leading with 2,598 votes. He secured 553 votes in the third round.
ABVP's Lakshya Raj Singh was second with 2,199 votes, followed by NSUI candidate Gopal Choudhary with 1,958 votes. Choudhary secured 558 votes in the third round, the highest among the candidates in that round. Left candidate B Parijat had 811 votes.
DUSU election counting underway
Counting of votes for the DUSU Election 2026 began on Saturday, with results for the four central posts — President, Vice-President, Secretary and Joint Secretary expected later in the day.
The counting is taking place at the Multipurpose Hall of the University Sports Stadium in North Campus, University of Delhi.
Polling concluded on Friday after voting was held in two phases across 52 polling centres. The election recorded a voter turnout of 40.46 per cent, the highest in the past three years. Last year's turnout was 39.5 per cent.
The first phase of polling was held from 8.30am to 1pm, while the second phase for evening students took place from 3pm to 7.30pm.
A total of 1,000 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were arranged for the election. Of these, 960 were deployed for polling, while 40 were kept in reserve.
Twenty candidates representing major student organisations, including ABVP, NSUI and the All India Students’ Association (AISA)-Students’ Federation of India (SFI) alliance, contested the elections.
According to the final provisional candidate list, seven candidates were in the fray for President, five for Vice-President, four for Secretary and four for Joint Secretary.
The main contest has been between ABVP and NSUI. ABVP fielded Yash Dabas for President and Ishu Maurya for Vice-President, while NSUI nominated Vijay Shankar Meena and Veer Chatrath for the two posts.