NEW DELHI: Aditi Mahavidyalaya, a DU college, has formed a committee to investigate allegations of irregularities in its college-level elections after two candidates alleged discrepancies in counting, EVM handling and said that non-students, including a BJP functionary, were near a booth on the polling day.All the candidates who won the election on Sept 18 were backed by ABVP.On Sept 21, Diya Chhabra, who contested for president, and Prachi Wadhwa, who contested for secretary, sent a representation to the college, alleging election malpractice. The college informed them on Sept 24 that it had formed a probe committee.According to a result sheet that Chhabra and Wadhwa have submitted, 568 votes were cast across the two booths — 315 in booth 1 and 253 in booth 2. However, the number of votes recorded for the posts varied. For president, the total was 563 — 314 in booth 1 and 249 in 2. For secretary, the votes cast were 539 — 311 in booth 1 and 228 in booth 2. For the joint secretary post, 542 votes were cast — the booth-wise break-up was 311 and 231.The duo said that while the shortfall was between one and four votes for president, the shortfall was 25 votes for secretary and 22 for joint secretary in booth 2. The two have asked how many NOTA votes were cast and asked for the unedited CCTV footage of polling day too.They also alleged that an observer in booth 1 was not allowed to stay inside the polling area and that EVMs were opened before voting without a verification by the candidates. A non-student, that too a man, was allowed on the women’s college campus during the campaign and the polling and was seen near a booth on Sept 18 between 11.30am and 1pm with BJP MLA Ravinder Indraj Singh, they wrote.When Singh was asked about this, he said that as a “public representative” he had gone to the campus. “The college is in my constituency, and I had got complaints about some commotion there.”The duo has approached Delhi High Court. “It is troubling that a college is alleged to have manipulated vote counts and allowed external political functionaries in,” counsel Shaurya Vikram said.Calls and texts to principal Neelam Rathi went unanswered.
