Mrittunjoy Guha Majumdar, a candidate in this year’s race for the role of Graduate Union (GU) president, has been issued with a formal warning from Election Committee (EC) after his campaign sent unsolicited email to potential voters.

He has vowed to appeal the ruling, saying “the manner of vitiating a candidate is disproportionate to the possible benefits that may could have come from the conveying of the message by email to a few people”.

It is the first reprimand handed out by EC during this year’s elections, after they dismissed allegations that access and funding candidate Shadab Ahmed had been defamed by opponent Rhiannon Melliar-Smith.

In a statement, EC said: “The Elections Committee received multiple complaints regarding unsolicited emails sent by Mrittunjoy Guha Majumdar.”

“Because of the extent of emails sent, the Elections Committee have decided to issue a formal warning to Mrittunjoy on this matter,” they added.

The warning falls short of a campaigning ban, but Guha Majumdar may receive a penalty if he is found to infringe on the rules again.

Guha Majumdar, a PhD candidate at Christ’s who has held various positions in CUSU and the GU over several years, is running against Joe Cotton and Sophie Ropek Hewson for the position of president, in the GU’s most competitive election since 2015. Voting opens tomorrow, with all candidates hoping that engagement will grow from its 6% level last year.

Elections rules dictate that “Use of pre-existing email lists, social media pages or groups for the purpose of promoting your candidacy is not permitted”, adding “When sending electronic messages of any sort (text, email, WhatsApp etc.) for this purpose, they must only be sent to friends and your campaigners”.

Guha Majumdar was found to be in violation of this rule after he or his campaigners “used email addresses found from department websites to send unsolicited emails”, EC said.

Speaking to Varsity, Guha Majumdar said that he would appeal the ban, but acknowledged mistakes had been made, something which he appeared to blame on his supporters.

“I do accept that there were some lapses by my team due to not being aware of certain clauses and rules,” he said, “but I feel the manner of vitiating a candidate is disproportionate to the possible benefits that may could have come from the conveying of the message by email to a few people. I have filed an appeal and am awaiting the result of the same. I would like to highlight the good message and vision in my manifesto, and work to not allow the focus to be moved away from that.”