The Students’ Union (SU) by-elections for the post of General Secretary took place on the 19th of August with Akash Singh beating Krushabh Mistry by 244 votes. Except for Vishwakarma Bhawan, most hostels were won by Singh by comfortable margins. Unlike the previous year’s elections, both the General Secretarial candidates and all the H-Rep candidates obtained more votes than None of the above (NOTA).

Krushabh was successful in most of the 4th year students’ hostels. However, due to dismal voter turnouts in these hostels, his margins of victory in Ashok (26-10), Rana Pratap (33-10), and Bhagirath (31-22) were nowhere close to Akash’s in the other hostels. Krushabh also won in Gandhi (52-40) and beat Akash by a single vote in Krishna. Malviya C/Malviya Studio Apartments was the only hostel where Krushabh won by a significant margin (41-16).

Akash wiped out Krushabh in Meera Bhavan, getting almost three times the number of votes (110-38). The 2nd year students’ hostels voted in huge numbers for Akash, with Budh (165-102), Ram (17287), and Vyas (114-61) practically handing him the victory. Day scholars also voted for Akash and gave him a 24-16 win. CVR (2910), which usually sees a poor turnout, was won by Akash. Malviya A/B (84-71) and Vishwakarma (83-70), were the only other hostels where Akash won by a close margin.

Most hostels had only one candidate contesting for the H-Rep elections and securing the victory over NOTA. The second-year hostels – Budh and Ram – had three candidates each. While Abhinav Tyagi won the Budh H-Rep elections by a difference of just 20 votes, Rahul Bubna celebrated a landslide victory in Ram, beating the closest competitor by 91 votes. In fact, he received 25 votes more than all the other candidates combined. Like the General Secretary By-Elections, Vishwakarma saw close competition in the H-Rep Elections, with Bhaskar Sharma winning by 7 votes.

Ashok and Malviya C/Malviya Studio Apartments saw no candidates standing for the H-Rep post, which resulted in another round of by-elections taking place on the 8th of September. Yash Pandya and Nishal Harish Guttikar finally did stand from Ashok and Mal C respectively, both of them managing to get elected.