Following the announcement of the Dhaka University Central Students’ Union (DUCSU) and hall union election results in September 10, the vote counting debacle has been attributed to “human fatigue” by the DUCSU Chief Returning Officer Mohammad Jasim Uddin.
He clarified that despite the discrepancies in counting votes, there would be no change in the list of elected candidates.
After the results were declared on September 10, Lanzu Khan, a candidate for the post of Literary and Cultural Secretary, and Mohammad Sakib, a candidate for International Secretary, raised concerns about discrepancies in vote counting.
Sarbomitra Chakma, who won the Executive Member seat from the Islami Chhatra Shibir-supported United Student Alliance, also posted on Facebook about discrepancies in his votes, stating that the number had increased after the official announcement.
In a statement sent to the media, the chief returning officer explained that the final and unchanged results for DUCSU and hall unions were based on the officially declared and published results.
He stated that during the integration of results from eight centres, minor discrepancies occurred due to continuous work-induced human fatigue.
The Election Commission, acknowledging this “unintentional” error, expressed sincere apologies and confirmed that the integrated results had been corrected. The list of elected candidates remains unchanged following the correction.
The elections were held on September 9, with voting at 810 booths across eight campus centres. The elections saw allegations of violation of code of conduct from competing panels.
A total of 39,874 voters participated, including 18,959 female voters from five halls and 20,915 male voters from 13 halls. In the DUCSU election, 471 candidates competed for 28 posts, while 1,035 candidates contested in 234 posts across 18 hall unions.
The Sommilito Shikkharthi Jote, backed by Chhatra Shibir, won 23 out of 28 central posts. Of the remaining five posts, four were won by independent candidates, and one by Hema Chakma, a candidate from the left-leaning “Protirodh Parshad.”
Chhatra Shibir’s Md Abu Sadik (Sadik Kayem) won the vice president (VP) post, SM Farhad won the general secretary (GS) post, and Mohiuddin Khan secured the assistant general secretary (AGS) post.
