ABVP wins MSUSU polls with narrow margin

VADODARA: The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) emerged as winner in the M S University Students Union (MSUSU) elections on Wednesday as it won both the top two posts of union general secretary (GS) and vice-president (VP).
But this year's student elections were so close that marginal votes made the difference. With thin margin, the National Students Union of India (NSUI) has demanded recounting for the post of GS.
MSU officials will take a decision regarding recounting of votes on Thursday.
ABVP candidates - Jayesh Balai and Sai Vichare - won by a small margin against their rival candidates supported by the NSUI. ABVP's VP candidate Sai Vichare won by a margin of 261 votes as she garnered 5968 votes against NSUI's VP candidate Bhumika Barot who bagged 5707 votes in her favour. The third candidate - Laxmi Yadav - who was also contesting for the VP's post bagged 374 votes.
The margin was even thinner in the case of GS candidates. ABVP's GS candidate Jayesh Balai won by a margin of only 51 votes as he garnered 5,423 votes against NSUI's candidate Gautam Nayak who bagged 5,372 votes in his favour.
After NSUI submitted application for recounting of votes, MSUSU returning officer P M Shah told TOI that the decision regarding recounting will be taken by the advisory committee which will meet on Thursday.
It is worth mentioning here that last year ABVP supported candidates had won by a margin of over 1,000 votes against their rival NSUI candidates.
There were five other candidates who were also contesting for the GS post. These candidates - Bhavin Arya, Akshay More, Devyani Parmar, Abhishek Prajapati and Deep Thakkar - have received 308, 334, 238, 147 and 161 votes in their favour.
Although the ABVP was confident that it would sweep the polls and it also had top BJP leaders supporting the candidates, the election turned out to be a neck to neck battle as counting of votes started after 3 pm onwards.
Much before the election results were declared on Wednesday evening, ABVP had already started celebrations by taking out a victory rally from the main campus to the union pavilion.
NSUI on the other hand tasted victory as Purvesh Barole - a candidate supported by them for the post of faculty general secretary (FGS) won at Faculty of Commerce. At Faculty of Arts - Fazal Akbar Khan, at Faculty of Science - Jaymin Patel and Faculty of Law - Krishnaray Rayjada - won the posts of FGS.