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The Gymkhana Elections at IITB were held on 26th March, and the provisional results for the General Secretary elections were declared immediately after, later that night. However, following reports of misconduct during the Gymkhana Elections 2022, the Election Commission has decided to invalidate the interim results and not release the official results, in an unprecedented turn of events.
Returning Officer of the EC, Hrishikesh Baviskar quoted, “It was brought to our notice during several E-DAC meetings that gross irregularities had taken place during the student body elections, so much so that anything short of cancellation of the interim results would be unfair to the democratic processes of the institute and the student population as a whole.” The EC refused to comment on what will now happen with the Institute Secretary Elections results.
The EC ruled out the possibility of imposing penalties instead and mentioned that polt teams of certain candidates had made a complete mockery of the election process in the Institute. A preliminary report was provided, and a more comprehensive report will soon be released, detailing proof of every incident that took place during the course of the elections. The EC has released the preliminary report (link provided at the end), which it believes should be made public because it is the right of the students to be aware of the happenings of that fateful week.
When asked about what will happen next, there are two possibilities that the EC is exploring. Either re-election will take place with stricter enforcement of rules, or a series of nominations and interviews will decide the General Secretaries for the upcoming year. With the end-semester examinations drawing close, the latter option seems more likely.
This is not the first time incidents have happened during the elections, with massive vote penalties being awarded on multiple occasions. However, this is the first time in history that the results have been made void. We hope that soon a solution will be found and which will give us fairly elected/nominated representatives.
The link to the EC report: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ilKpEwL9pRXad3kRGMOsMzACvEKqsb98jlCv924EBbo/edit#
*this article is a work of fiction
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