PU council poll: Absence of open house impels student groups to get active on social media

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 27

Tapping the voters through various media platforms, students’ groups are leaving no stone unturned to use the technology to its best. With just eight days left for the Panjab University Campus Students Council (PUCSC) elections and students’ council elections in local colleges, the political groups have suddenly become active on various social media platforms for canvassing for these elections.

With a veto on organising open house — an event where representatives of all majority groups used to come and interact with a massive show of power — on the campus, social media has become an important tool for the youngsters to approach their voters. All major groups contesting students’ council elections have a full time social media handling team, which ensures a daily update for the voters.

“There’s a massive change in recent years. These elections no more remain a colourful event, rather it’s conducted under strict guidelines. Besides the ban on conducting an open house, car rallies are also limited to be taken out only after getting permission. There’s restriction on groups’ spending budgets, besides display of poll material and rallies. In such a scenario, social media is the only way to approach the targeted voters without any threat of restrictions,” said Ekant Sharma, a student of the University Institute of Engineering and Technology (UIET), who is handling the social media campaign of a group.

Such is the impact of social media on students’ council elections that some former students have come up with dedicated podcast channels for giving live updates about the campus. “We started our channel specially for presenting university campus news, and during elections the viewership almost doubles. The nature of campus elections has changed a lot in the last decade, and it’s now moving towards a very systemic way. The students have now got more exposure and are very open to picking their choices. The social media helps them to go through all details of a political group at a given time of the day and it helps both contestants and voters,” said Sourav Kansal, who runs a specialised channel for campus updates.

He further added, “We have specialised teams consisting of students. We will be conducting podcast interviews of the candidates later this week.”

The story at local colleges is no different as political groups are making full use of various platforms, mainly WhatsApp and Instagram. “It’s easy to approach the student voters in colleges. The traffic on these social media platforms and the accounts of college political groups increases four times during the elections. There’s no such major expenditure in maintaining the social media accounts, and since it’s a students’ election, the groups find many volunteers for the cause,” said Pritam, a student of GGDSD College, Sector 32, who is also working for a political group.

“The groups have already started sending campaigning videos to students and uploaded it over their social media accounts. The assessment from the online traffic and views will surely help these political groups to manage their popularity,” said Anand, a student of PGGC-11.

Youngsters challaned, vehicle impounded

The Chandigarh police challaned around 6-7 youngsters for flouting code of conduct ahead of student council elections in PU by taking out a car rally and hanging out of car windows with posters in hand. According to police officials, the youngsters were fined for violating the Motor Vehicles Act and a jeep was also impounded. Illegal pasted stickers on the windshields were also removed by the cops. A university student leader claimed that these students were outsiders. TNS