Supporters of elected president Jyotsna Lipi Nanda celebrate her victory at Kamala Nehru Womens College in Bhubaneswar. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 29: The much-awaited students’ union elections in all the government colleges across the state finally came to an end today.

Most of the colleges witnessed huge number of students turning up for the polls. It was compulsory for students to be in uniforms and carry renewed identity cards in order to be eligible for voting. Authorities of all colleges also made adequate security arrangements.

The polls were conducted amid tight security between 8am and 2pm today, after which the counting began. The results were declared at 5.30pm following which celebrations erupted on campuses across the state. The winners were tossed up in the air and their supporters danced with joy.

Utkal University, Bhubaneswar saw 986 students turning up for the polls. Tanmaya Swain, a final-year student of personnel management and industrial relations, was elected as the president. He defeated his rival Jyoti Ranjan Prusty by a massive margin of 903 votes. An elated Tanmaya and his friends took out a colourful bike rally.

The new president of Cuttack’s Ravenshaw University is Srikant Parida, a final-year student of MCom, who trounced three other presidential aspirants by a margin of 450 votes.

Total 3,402 students of the varsity took part in the polls. Deepak Chowda, a visually challenged student of first-year history, who was backed by the All India Democratic Students’ Organisation, became Ravenshaw’s vice-president.

In degree colleges in the capital, the polls were conducted with much fanfare. Subhalaxmi Tripathy of Ramadevi Women’s College, Jyotsna Lipi Nanda of Kamala Nehru Women’s College, Chandan Pal of the College of Basic Sciences and Humanities and Rupalin Dash of City Women’s College bagged the posts of president.

Earlier, elections had been called off at BJB (Autonomous) College, Ekamra College and Maharishi College of Natural Law following violent clashes among students.

In other colleges of Cuttack, Priya Mitra of Sailabala Women’s College, Sujit Malla of Christ College and Ashwini Biswal of JKBK College were elected as president. Sambalpur’s Gangadhar Meher College held an indirect election in which Bhima Patra was selected as the president by an electoral committee.

Every department nominated two students there, each on the basis of their academics and one other student considering the cultural excellence. These shortlisted candidates filed their nominations for various posts of the students union. Reema Pradhan was elected as the president of the Government Women’s College, Sambalpur, while Jayanta Kumar Parida won this post at the Netaji Subash Chandra Bose College in that town.

Amit Padhi became the president of FM (Autonomous) College, Balasore, by beating two rival candidates by a margin of 300-odd votes. More than 50 per cent students took part in the polls there today.