As student bodies are prohibited from campaigning 48 hours before elections, the Panjab University authorities told the student bodies to not campaign after 10 am on Sunday. With this, the months-long campaigning comes to an end, without reports of violence.
However, leaders and members of student bodies have now moved on to one-on-one interactions with students, with some also taking students to parties and trips to hill stations. Apart from this, student bodies are also reaching out to the young voters on social media, where they are sharing videos about their organisations and attacking other student bodies.
Although printed material is prohibited for canvassing, most student bodies were spotted using them during campaigns and interactions with students, despite the period for campaigning being over.
A total of eight candidates are in the fray for the post of president, three for vice-president, four for secretary and six for joint secretary of the PU student council.
Panjab University Student’s Union (PUSU) has for the first-time fielded a female candidate for president. Apart from PUSU, Students for Society (SFS) has also fielded a female candidate.
The university along with its 11 affiliated colleges in Chandigarh will go to polls on October 18 after a hiatus of two years due to the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the Chandigarh Police personnel held a flag march on PU campus on Sunday evening. The flag march was led by senior police officers.
At least 150 police personnel including three SHOs and two DSP rank officers were present in the flag march.
PCR gypsies, riot control vehicles, water canon vehicles were also seen.
For votes, student bodies threw parties
The parties contesting the Panjab University Campus Students’ Council elections employed all methods to woo voters. One of these was to throw fresher parties at city’s clubs with unlimited snacks and soft drinks, hosting of dinner parties at hostels, free lifts from departments to hostels, trips to hill stations, and pizza parties.
At the parties hosted at clubs, singers were invited to promote the name of the particular party.
A student leader said when influencers announce support for a particular party, it makes an impact to some extent, although some of the students that come for the party don’t show up on the day of polling.
The expenditure on such parties in clubs runs into lakhs, the student leader said. This raises a question on the funding of such student bodies.
However, as per the norms of Lyngdoh Committee, a candidate should not spend more than Rs 5,000 in the elections.