New Delhi, Nov 25 (IANS): Rounak Khatri of Congress-backed National Students' Union of India (NSUI) was on Monday elected the new president of the Delhi University Students' Union, reclaiming the post for his outfit after seven years.

With this, he scripted a memorable comeback for the grand old party in student politics ahead of the Assembly elections in Delhi.

Rounak Khatri defeated RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad’s (ABVP) Rishabh Chaudhary by 1,300 votes.

ABVP’s Bhanu Pratap Singh bagged the vice-president's post and his party’s colleague Mitravinda Karnawal captured the secretary’s post.

For the Joint Secretary’s post, the battle was won by Lokesh of NSUI, defeating Aman Kapasiya of ABVP.

Around 1.40 lakh students were eligible to cast their votes and pick four out of the 21 candidates in the fray for the four top posts.

As the final tally of the DUSU polls stood at 2-2 between NSUI and the ABVP, the balance appeared to be tilted towards the Congress-backed outfit. Not only has the NSUI scored a grand revival to bag the president’s post but also improved its record from last year when it had bagged only the vice-president’s post.

The DUSU election results, declared almost two months after voting in September due to court curbs, are considered a barometer of the youth’s political mood in the Capital which is heading towards an Assembly election around February.

The gains for the student wing of the Congress are likely to set a favourable tone for it in the Assembly elections to pick a new 70-member House in February.

The AAP which has headed the Delhi government for a decade is yet to emerge as a worthy third player in DUSU elections that have nurtured leaders like Union ministers Arun Jaitley and Vijay Goel of the BJP and Union minister and former Delhi mayor Ajay Maken and former MLA Alka Lamba of the Congress.

According to Professor Satyapal Singh, Chief Election Officer of DUSU Elections 2024-25, the counting of votes for DUSU started at 8 a.m. in the Conference Centre, opposite the Department of Botany in the North Campus.

Voting for the top four DUSU posts took place on September 27 but the Delhi High Court had stayed the declaration of results till the removal of defacement by candidates.

On November 11, the High Court gave its go-ahead saying that poll results may be declared on or before November 26.