UoH Elections 2019: First phase completed peacefully, 2000+ students turn up to vote

Polling in the first phase of the University of Hyderabad Students' Union elections ended peacefully at 1 pm as more than 2,000 students voted in the first half, sources at the university said. A total of around 5,000 students are eligible for voting and they are casting their votes at 16 polling booths on September 26.

Even though no official figures have been released yet, sources said that around 2,300 students voted in the first half. A total of 24 candidates will be contesting for the position of Office Bearers — President (5 candidates), Vice-President (5 candidates), General Secretary (4 candidates), Joint Secretary (4 candidates), Cultural Secretary (3 candidates) and Sports Secretary (3 candidates). In addition, 124 candidates will be contesting for different positions of School Board Members (Research & PG), School Councilors and Internal Complaint Committee (ICC-GSCASH) representatives for the Research, PG and Integrated segments.

The Ambedkar Students Association, Students Federation of India, Dalit Students Union and the Telangana Students Federation have formed an alliance this year. The SFI and the ASA have had their differences but this year they've come together to 'fight the right-wing'. The alliance has proposed candidates for all the posts. Last year's winner ABVP, has also geared up well for the elections but Congress-backed NSUI has opted out of the contest this year. This year's election is also more dramatic than other years — ABVP's Presidential candidate Phani Krishna, a PhD student was a hardcore critic of the party he now represents and was a member of NSUI even a month ago. ABVP had won last year's election after a long dry spell of eight years.

The Election Commission comprising of nine faculty members chaired by Dr V Srinivasa Rao (Associate Professor, Centre for Regional Studies, School of Social Sciences), co-chaired by Dr Md Zahidul Haque (Associate Professor, Dept. of Urdu, School of Humanities) and Dr B Bindu Madhav Reddy (Assistant Professor, School of Life Sciences) is conducting the Students Union elections for the year 2019-2020. The notification to file the nominations was released by the Commission on September 17. A total of around 200 university staffs are engaged with the Election Commission in conducting the Students Union Election smoothly. The results shall be declared on September 27.