The Delhi University Student Union elections are one of the most prominent student body elections in the country. Soon after the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad’s (ABVP), Ankiv Baisoya became the president rumours started emerging, NSUI claimed that he used a fake certificate to get admission into Delhi University.

NSUI released a letter from Thiruvalluvar University- Ankiv’s alma mater

Congress’s student wing National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) released a letter from his previous university- Thiruvalluvar University in Tamil Nadu stating that the BA certificates submitted by recently elected Delhi University Student Union (DUSU) President, Ankiv, are fake as reported by The Times of India. Ankiv is a student of MA Buddhist Studies program in Delhi University. National Secretary of NSUI said, “This mark sheet was present by Ankiv Baisoya for taking admission in MA Buddhist. The University clearly refuses to have enrolled a student of such name and a mark sheet with such a serial number is not in their record”. He also alleges that like its parent organisations RSS and BJP, ABVP also wins elections by using unfair means. ABVP has won three key seats in DUSU elections last week, Ankiv Baisoya won the presidential post, Shakti Singh from ABVP won the seat of Vice-president, and Jyoti won the post of Joint-secretary.

ABVP states the whole issue is NSUI’s propaganda to defame Ankiv

ABVP has released a statement, in which they condemned the allegations of NSUI saying that the whole matter a propaganda. “But it’s not the job of NSUI to provide certificates to any person. DU has all the right to verify documents of not only Ankiv but all DUSU office bearers to stop rumours in future,” said State Media Convener of ABVP

Ankiv said that the allegations are baseless, and the move by NSUI is made to defame him after they were unhappy with his win in elections. While speaking to NDTV he said that he will file a defamation suit against NSUI for these baseless and false allegations. However, Baisoya had trouble recalling the subjects he studied in his Arts programme, The Scroll reported. When asked for specific subjects that he studied, he said he wrote several exams in English and “other skill-based subjects”. He also failed to recall names of any of the head of the department.

“The letter from the controller of examinations, being circulated by the NSUI, does not have a date in one column and the column which has the date says it was written on September 7. If they had the letter before, why did they wait until the election results to circulate it,” he said. He also said that he hasn’t got any call from the university administration till now about the issue.

NSUI demands an investigation from DU administration

On the other hand, NSUI is demanding an investigation from university administration into the matter. They said “We demand DU administration to take the strictest action if the allegation of the degree being fake is true. NSUI will submit a charter of demands to the administration on Wednesday”. 

Incumbent on DU Admin to investigate and expel Ankiv Baisoya if certificate fake. Needless to say, he will also no longer remain DUSU President. #ABVP #NSUI https://t.co/vbFAmkYmBV

— Ruchi Gupta (@guptar) September 18, 2018

NSUI has also submitted a plea in Delhi High Court for the checking of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) machines used in elections. Following the plea, the court on September 17, has directed the university to keep the EVMs safe and secure for further probe.

Allegations of EVM tampering

The DUSU elections were marred with several controversies.  As reported by Newslaundary, this was the first a DUSU election was suspended because of alleged EVM malfunction. Also, reportedly, the EVMs were not obtained from the Election Commission of India (ECI) but from Electronics Corporation of Indis Limited (ECIL).

It is also being alleged that there was lack of transparency this year. Students were reportedly asked to “go home” after the counting was suspended by Chief Election Officer Prof VS Kaul. Kaul did not issue any written statement about the suspension of counting. Unlike last year, the journalists too were not allowed to enter the counting centre nor were they provided any briefing about the trends.

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