Panjab University polls: Major parties stumble in the final lap
Even in the second biggest department University Institute of Legal Studies (UILS), CYSS’ Prince Chaudhary got 556 votes against winning candidate Dalal’s 426 votes
After a dry run of one year, AAP-led Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS) almost reclaimed the presidential seat in the Panjab University Campus Student’s Council (PUCSC) elections, but remained shy of only 303 votes. CYSS candidate Prince Chaudhary was able to win more votes than winning candidate Anurag Dalal in University Institute of Engineering and Technology (UIET), varsity’s biggest department in terms of vote share, where Prince polled 464 whereas Dalal received 30 votes. Even in the second biggest department University Institute of Legal Studies (UILS), Prince got 556 votes against Dalal’s 426 votes. But the battle, however, was won in smaller departments, where Dalal was able to get small leads over Prince in almost every department.
Cross-voting to blame
Last year too, CYSS had a strong chance with Divyansh Thakur losing the presidential seat by a margin of just 603 votes. While the party’s Chandigarh president Sanjeev Chaudhary remained unavailable for comment, Thakur, who was recently appointed party’s Chandigarh unit in-charge, said they had tried to vary their strategy and had changed their social media planning to a more personalised approach. While anti-incumbency factor was also in their favour, party sources revealed that they suspect that cross voting was to blame, with people of other parties choosing to vote for Dalal. They further said there was also a delay in announcing the final candidate which also cost them dearly.
NSUI foresaw the loss
National Students Union of India (NSUI) remained a shadow of its last year performance, when Jatinder Singh had polled 3,002 votes. This time, Rahul Nain, the party’s president pick managed received just 501 votes. Even independent candidate Mukul Chauhan managed to score more votes than him. While NSUI national general secretary and election in-charge Dilip Choudhary remained unavailable for comment, a party member familiar with the matter revealed that the party was aware that it will lose the presidential seat and, therefore, had been putting in more muscle in campaigning for the vice-president seat towards the end of the campaign, which NSUI’s Archit won. The Congress-led party presented a divided face, which convinced students they wouldn’t be the right pick for president. They had a strong manifesto last year and issues, like menstrual leave had earned them the support of female students. But this year’s manifesto lacked the same punch, and their four point “PLAN” was overshadowed by manifestos of other parties.
Will field 4-member panels from now on: ABVP
RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) had also fielded a four-member panel this year and were elated at winning the joint secretary post with Jasvinder Rana scoring 3,489 votes. The party’s north India organising secretary Gaurav Attri termed this campaign as optimistic. “I had gotten the responsibility to look after the campaign just a month before the elections. We could have influenced the election further if we had more time,” he said. However, some positives were also seen. Attri explained that ABVP, by fielding just one candidate in previous years, had reduced its chances of winning. “By having four tries we are more likely to succeed with just one post. Even one victory will work wonders for the cadres morale and in a few years can lead to two victories and more. We are working on a long-term plan and will surely field four-member panels from now on,” Attri added.
The party’s president candidate Arpita Malik, however, did poorly as she received only 1,114 votes. The party needs to shed it’s “pro-authority” tag if it wants to win its maiden president seat in PUCSC.