JNUSU polls: Counting underway

New Delhi : The counting of votes for the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) polls began on Saturday after an 11-hour delay due to a deadlock between the students and the administration, the varsity's Election Committee said.

After the Delhi High Court on Friday restrained the JNU from notifying the election results till September 17, it was decided at a meeting between the student-run Election Committee (EC) and all the parties around 10 pm to go ahead with the counting, it said.

The counting process began at 11:55 pm, JNU EC Chairman Shashank Patel said. However, it had to be put on hold due to a deadlock between the student community and the JNU's Grievance Redressal Cell (GRC) over the latter's demand that the counting agents give a written undertaking stating they would not disclose the results, he said.

"The EC tried its best to convince the GRC to change its stand based on the demands of the student community," Patel said, adding that the deadlock led to an 11-hour delay in the counting process. When a consensus could not be reached even after so many hours, the EC decided to resume the counting of votes anyway with declaration of trends, the EC chairman said.

The result, however, will be put on hold, he added. The JNUSU polls, held on Friday, witnessed a 67.9 per cent voter turnout, believed to be the highest in seven years. Earlier, the results were supposed to be declared on Sunday.

The high court order restraining the university from declaring the results came on pleas by two students alleging that their nominations for election of councilor in the JNUSU were illegally rejected.