SILCHAR Oct 9 - At a time when the office of the Vice Chancellor of Assam University Silchar has been put under lock and key by the outgoing students union for the past 11 days demanding steps for the resignation of Prof Sameer Behera, former head of Department of Mathematics, in a case of student harassment, around 2900 students from 38 departments excercised their voting rights on Tuesday to elect the new body of the Assam University Students Union (AUSU).
Abhinandan Mahanta was elected as the new president of the union with 1433 votes. However, till the filing of this report, inside sources at the university claimed that there is a possibility of a recounting of votes for the post of general secretary. Deboprotim Saha got 1133 votes while Raja Kumar bagged 1130 votes as candidates for the GS post.
According to sources, the voting proceedings which got under way from 10:30 am continued till 2 pm.
As many as 22 student candidates were in the fray for various posts of the Union. Polling to the students� union was conducted under the vigillance of Prof G Ram, the chairman of the election commission of the university.
On the other hand, Milon Das, the outgoing president of AUSU said, �the students have locked down the office of the Vice Chancellor for his failure to respond to the demands so far. We hope that the newly-elected body shall raise voices and fight for the legitimate rights of the students and other pending issues in the coming days.�
