Dehradun: The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad ( ABVP ) emerged victorious in most of the colleges across Uttarakhand that went to polls on Saturday for electing their respective students’ unions.In the hotly-contested election held largely between candidates belonging to either the Congress-backed National Student Union of India (NSUI) and the RSS-affiliated ABVP, the latter emerged victorious at several campuses like Dehradun’s DBS College Doon University as well as MPG College in Mussoorie. NSUI was able to register victory at MKP College in Dehradun and a few other colleges while a Left-backed candidate was declared victorious in Pithoragarh.At DBS College, ABVP’s Manbeer Singh was elected president with 790 votes, beating NSUI’s Sudhanshu Joshi who could get only 128 votes. At Doon University, too, ABVP’s Abhishek Thalwal was elected president.At SGRR College, ABVP rebel Pravind Gupta clenched the presidential post. Gupta had rebelled against ABVP after he was not given the ticket. Gupta was followed by the NSUI candidate while the ABVP candidate got the third position.At MKP, NSUI’s Nivedita Sirola won the post of president.Meanwhile, as soon as the results were announced at DBS College, all the other office-bearers also defected to ABVP. DBS College prinicipal, Dr AK Biyani told TOI, “While the post of president was won by the ABVP, all the other office- bearers have also announced that they will join ABVP.”Higher education minister Dhan Singh Rawat claimed that the ABVP has won 80% of seats that were polled. “The results indicate that the work that the ABVP has done across the campuses has yielded dividends. This is also an indicator of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections,” Rawat said.ABVP state president Pradeep Shekhawat termed it “a comprehensive win.” “We have won the elections convincingly. In fact, with officer-bearers of DBS College joining ABVP, it shows how our opponents have also started believing in our ideology and organisation.”Meanwhile, NSUI state president Mohan Bhandari said, “We have had losses at some colleges but have won comfortably at MKP, PG College at Rishikesh and Doiwala as well as DAV College Roorkee.”This is the first time that the student union elections in the state were held at the same time and their results, too, were declared together. Only Dehradun’s DAV (PG) College’s results will be declared on Sunday.The elections also assumed significance this year because Uttarakhand became the first state to change the guidelines of the Lyngdoh committee which had limited the expenditure for student elections to Rs 5000. The state government had increased it to Rs 20,000.