ABVP wins three DUSU posts: what it has meant for Lok Sabha polls

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the RSS, won the posts of president, vice-president and joint secretary in this year’s Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) election. The Congress-linked National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) won the secretary’s post. The outcome is welcome news for BJP supporters and a worrying sign for the Congress.

A pattern from past years

The result mirrors 2013, when the ABVP won the same three posts. In the Lok Sabha election that followed in 2014, the NDA, led by the BJP and fronted by Narendra Modi, defeated Manmohan Singh’s UPA government. The NDA won 325 of the 543 seats, and the BJP alone took 282, 10 above the majority mark of 272.

There has been a coincidental link between the two contests: on the past five occasions, whichever camp took the DUSU contest also prevailed in the Lok Sabha poll a year later. This happened after the DUSU elections of 1997, 1998, 2003, 2008 and 2013.

• 1997: The ABVP took all four posts; the BJP-led NDA under Atal Bihari Vajpayee won power in the Lok Sabha election of 1998.
• 1998: The ABVP won president and general secretary, while the NSUI won the other two posts; the NDA retained power the following year.
• 2003: The NSUI won all four posts; in 2004 the Vajpayee government lost to the Congress-led UPA.
• 2008: The ABVP’s Nupur Sharma won the president’s post against the NSUI’s Sonia Sapra, but the NSUI took the other three; the UPA under Manmohan Singh returned for a second term in 2009.
• 2013: The ABVP won three posts and the NSUI one, and the NDA swept to power in 2014.

What happened next

In the 2019 Lok Sabha election the BJP won 303 of 543 seats and the Congress 52, and Narendra Modi was sworn in for a second term on 30 May 2019.

See also: Bharatiya Janata Party and Lok Sabha members.

Originally published on 14 September 2018. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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