PU student council poll: Will three depts with high voter strength be game-changer?

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 31

With the Panjab University Campus Student Council (PUCSC) elections approaching, parties have shifted the focus of their campaigns to departments having a large number of voters — the University Institute of Engineering and Technology (UIET), University Institute of Legal Studies (UILS) and Department of Laws — which have more than 1,000 registered voters each.

Despite today being an unofficial holiday for campus students, the contesting groups were found aggressively canvassing at the UIET, which has 2,518 voters to date. Recently, many groups had promised to take up the issue of having a separate Student Centre, just to cater the UIET students. This year, despite having the highest strength of students, only one representative of the UIET is contesting the presidential post. It will be interesting to see, if Tarun Sidhu (from Student Organisation of India) grabbed a maximum of votes from the department.

With a strength of 1,950, the UILS had played an important role in the previous elections. Two candidates from the institute are contesting the top post. The ABVP candidate, Arpita Malik, is a student of five-year law course, while Prince Chaudhary of Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS) is first year LLM student. The Department of Law has 1,100 students. Like the UILS, the Department also has two of its pupils contesting the top post — Rahul Nain from the National Students’ Union of India and Mukul Chauhan, who is representing his own ‘Team Mukul’ outfit.

15,850 students to cast vote

A total of 15,850 students will be deciding winners among nine candidates for the post of president, five for vice-president, four for secretary and six contesting the post of joint secretary. The number of voters is likely to increase a bit as more students may get enrolled till September 4.