DUSU polls: Morning turnout dips by 8 percent, results on Saturday

New Delhi: Over 35 percent of students on Friday exercised their franchise in the morning leg of Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections with the voting percentage recording a dip of over 8 percent than last year's overall turnout.

The second phase of the polling concluded at 7 PM statistics of which were not available yet.

Chief Election Officer for DUSU elections, D S Rawat, said voting went off peacefully with 35.89 per cent of students casting their vote in the morning leg of polls.

"The elections in the morning from 8.30 AM to 12.30 PM went off smoothly. The maximum turnout of 91 per cent was recorded at the Ayurvedic and Unani Tibbia College and the minimum was in Ramjas College at 13.34 per cent followed by Campus Law Centre at 15 per cent," he said.

"Minor technical glitches were reported in Aurobindo college but was rectified within few minutes. The voting percentage for evening college students, which took place from 3 PM to 7 PM in the second leg, will be declared later in the night," he added.

The counting of votes will be taken up tomorrow after which the results will be declared.

"The university had deployed a team of observers who visited the 51 centres where the polling took place in teams of two to check violations of code of conduct. DU administration had also installed CCTV cameras besides hiring commercial videographers to record election activities to ensure free and fair polling," Rawat said.

According to a senior police official, the polling went off peacefully and no incidents of violence were reported.

"A huge contingent of police was deployed at various polling centres of the university to ensure that no untoward incident takes place.

"The movement of vehicles was also restricted on Chatra Marg in North Campus to avoid any chaos or discomfort to students. The polling was peaceful," the official added.

While four colleges didn't conduct their students' union polls, many students kept away from the DUSU central panel polls.