In the 48-year-old history of Panjab University Campus Students’ Council (PUCSC) elections, the RSS and BJP-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) won the presidential post for the first time ever. Its candidate, Gaurav Veer Sohal, a research scholar from the Department of Laws, won the post by a margin of 488 votes.
The candidate of the ABVP, which fought the elections in alliance with INSO and HSRC, polled 3,148 votes in a close fight against Sumit Kumar of the Students’ Front and Alliance, who secured 2,660 votes. However, ABVP’s alliance partners lost on all other seats.
Among the eight candidates in the fray for the top post, NSUI’s Parabjot Singh Gill and ASAP’s Mankirat Singh Mann also crossed the 1,000-vote mark with 1,359 and 1,184 votes respectively. Seerat of SOI got 422 votes, Ardas of SOPU 318 and Jobanpreet Singh of PSU (Lalkaar) 198. Navneet Kaur of ASF secured 136 votes. Surprisingly, NOTA was opted by 188 students.
What worked for ABVP
Infighting between major political groups made the fight only between the ‘two’ groups. In the last election, the Students’ Front won the election by a margin of 303 votes. It was a repeat of the last year, but the vote margin shifted towards the ABVP. The infighting between NSUI, PSUSU and SOPU gave a clear edge to rivals. Last year, Anurag Dalal rebelled from the NSUI and a similar development happened this time when Sumit Kumar, who was expected to lead NSUI, ended up contesting under the banned Students’ Front. He reportedly had the support of Deepender Singh Hooda. Dalal had re-joined the NSUI in his presence just before the elections.
Sumit Kumar, who was backed by four other parties under an alliance, was expected to win the election but the last-minute change due to infighting gave an edge to the ABVP. The victory holds a significance for the ABVP as the university has a majority of students from Haryana and Punjab. The parent group of the ABVP is trying to boost their voter base in Punjab.
A low turn-out
Blame it on heavy rain, the university witnessed the lowest-ever turnout in the past few years. A total of 9,613 votes were polled — around 59 per cent. Last year witnessed 66.5 per cent turnout, a minor increase from 66.1 per cent in 2022, 61.7 per cent in 2019 and 62 per cent in 2018. The authorities tried their best to encourage students to vote by extending the entry time to 10.45 am, instead of the scheduled 9 am, but to no avail.
