New Delhi, Sep 21 (IANS) : Amid fluctuating voter turnout in DUSU elections over the past four contests, a study on Monday found clear organisational continuity at the top of the ABVP.
The study titled “Delhi University Student Union Election Comparative Study 2023 to 2026” said that the four-election record shows organisational continuity at the top, but not electoral stability beneath it.
The study by Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation compared central-panel performance, voter trends, alliances, and external impacts on DUSU election outcomes from 2023 to 2026.
It said, “The ABVP won 11 of the 16 central-panel seats across 2023 to 2026. The NSUI won four. An Independent won one in the 2026 Vice President contest. The seat pattern, therefore, favoured ABVP in three of the four cycles, while 2024 produced the only two-two division between ABVP and NSUI.”
In the just-concluded DUSU elections, the RSS and BJP-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad beat Congress-backed National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) 3-0. ABVP leader Yash Dabas won the President’s post, Riya Chhawadi won the Secretary’s post, and Lakshya Raj Singh won the Joint Secretary’s post. Independent candidate Deepanshu Shokeen won the Vice President’s post.
The study said the aggregate vote measure used in the report adds an organisation’s candidate votes across the four DUSU central-panel contests and divides that figure by all votes recorded across those four contests.
“On that consistent basis, ABVP moved from 43.19 per cent in 2023 to 36.86 per cent in 2024, recovered to 39.66 per cent in 2025, and fell to 32.78 per cent in 2026. The NSUI moved from 31.99 per cent to 35.79 per cent, then to 31.51per cent and 23.39 per cent,” said the study.
“The 2026 fall for both major organisations reflects the unusually large independent and smaller-group vote, especially Deepanshu Shokeen’s 30,615 votes for Vice President and Vishesh Yadav’s 15,778 votes for Joint Secretary,” said the study.
The turnout fell from 42 per cent in 2023 to a reported decade-low 29.70 per cent in 2024, then recovered to 39.45 per cent in 2025 and 40.46 per cent in 2026, the study said.
The official result sheets report votes separately for each post rather than one consolidated count of unique voters. For that reason, this report uses the average of the four post totals as a ballot-volume proxy and does not present the sum of four post totals as unique voters, it said.
The analysis indicated that the Left vote did not convert into a seat. “The AISA and the SFI fielded separate panels in 2023 and then formed a joint slate in 2024. Their combined aggregate share was 12.99 per cent in 2023, 9.75 per cent in 2024, 11.48 per cent in 2025, and 9.18 per cent in 2026, the study said.
In 2026, two Left candidates received fewer votes than NOTA in their respective contests. Participation in the CJP-led mobilisation was visible, but the available evidence cannot establish that the mobilisation caused a gain or loss in Left votes, the study said.
A new AAP-linked outfit, the Association of Students for Alternative Politics (ASAP), successor in spirit to AAP’s earlier campus wing CYSS, which had explicitly sat out from the 2023 to 2025 and intervening polls, entered the fray for the first time in 2026-27, and a Samajwadi Chhatra Sabha (SP)-linked independent candidate unexpectedly finished runner-up for Joint Secretary the same year, pointing to a modest widening of the field beyond the traditional ABVP-NSUI-Left triangle, said the study.
The study also pointed towards a complete rejection of obsolete Left ideas despite CJP agitation.
The AISA-SFI alliance was unable to convert street presence into ballot support, despite the Left’s visible participation in the year’s broader Gen Z/CJP mobilisation, it said.
In 2026, the Left alliance’s combined vote share remained at 9.18 per cent, and two of its candidates polled below NOTA. The Left has been unable to secure a single central-panel seat or surpass 12 per cent for the past three years, suggesting DU students still see it as a fringe, ideologically exhausted force rather than a credible alternative, despite the volume of its agitation, the study said.
