Online portals give huge push to PU student council election enthusiasm

Striking a chord with the campus’ youths, various social media pages, majorly on Instagram, have started to add to the Panjab University Campus Students’ Council (PUCSC) election fever.

From assessing the promises fulfilled or left in between by former office-bearers, to coming up with updates about the students’ elections, various online platforms run by former and current students of the campus are turning out to be a hit among the youth. Having a good outreach, these pages also provide updates on local colleges and also keep a track on latest developments.

“These pages have been an instant hit with the campus students. They have a good following and even the campus political groups try to feature more on these portals instead of other means for sharing the information,” said Deevanshu, who is a team member of one of such groups.

Being managed by campus students, these pages also get more attention. “They have teams around various departments of the campus. This helps them to have a good repo with the political groups and indulge in various activities. Some of them, even advertise products while shooting on the campus and interestingly some even run exit poll as the code of conduct ends,” said a university official, seeking anonymity.

Running these pages, which claim to provide ‘real time updates’ comes with a great responsibility. In the recent past, anonymous trolling and meme warfare among student factions have prompted some to file complaints against some portals with the cyber crime cell of the Chandigarh Police.

In April, taking note of increased unauthorised social media handles, the university had written to the cyber crime cell, and also formed a committee after appointing the director, public relations, as its convener for identifying unauthorised portals. “The work to identify the pages is still underway and the authorities will soon issue SOPs for the same. Those found misrepresenting the university’s pages will be asked to submit a detailed report by the police,” said a university official.

“These portals become more important as the university gears up for elections, so we will be announcing something in the coming days with the help of Chandigarh Police,” added a university official.

Meanwhile, Chandigarh SSP Kanwardeep Kaur during a meeting with university officials and students’ leaders on Monday on the campus asked the students to file a complaint with the area SHO in case they found any misinformation or fake news running on any social media website.

“The report regarding misinformation or fake news may be filed with the area SHO along with requisite documents, including the link, a photograph and time of uploading the information. The Chandigarh Police will take strict action on websites spreading fake or unconfirmed reports in the run-up of the elections,” said Kanwardeep while interacting with the students.