SFS draws blank in executive committee polls, rivals join hands

Bhartesh Singh Thakur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 14

The Students for Society (SFS) drew blank on Friday as rivals-Panjab University Students Union (PUSU), Students Organisation of India (SOI) and National Students Union of India (NSUI)-joined hands for the five posts of the executive committee of the PUCSC.

Out of five, the three parties won 4 seats, while one went to the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) alliance.

The SOI is a students’ wing of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the NSUI is a students’ party of the Indian National Congress (INC). Both the parties are rivals in Punjab. PUSU is not affiliated to any political party.

On September 6, the SFS had created history as its candidate Kanupriya was elected as the president of the Panjab University Campus Students’ Council (PUCSC), but Friday’s results surprised them.

For the five posts of the executive committee elections, 124 department representatives and four office-bearers i.e. president, vice-president, secretary and joint secretary were eligible to vote. But, the total votes cast were 105.

There were 16 candidates. SOI got two while NSUI, PUSU and the ABVP, Students for Panjab University (SFPU) bagged one each.

Vinny Kaur of the University Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (UIPS) got the highest number of votes i.e. 55. She is from PUSU.

Ramanpreet Kaur of Physics department got 39. She is from SOI.

Vaibhav Mahajan of the Department of Defence and National Security Studies received 35 votes. He is from NSUI. Anand Kumar of the University Institute of Engineering and Technology (UIET) got 34. He is from SOI.

Vrinda of Physics department bagged 33 votes and she is from the ABVP-SFPU.

SFS’s Kumar Gautam of the University Institute of Legal Studies (UILS) received 31 votes and was at the sixth place, so he couldn’t be elected. Other two candidates of the party received much lesser votes.

How other parties turned the tables on SFS

Ramanpreet Kaur said: “For today’s executive committee elections, SOI, PUSU and NSUI have fought together. We put up five candidates and out of them four won.”

Another SOI winner Anand Kumar also confirmed that there was an alliance of PUSU, NSUI and SOI.

However, Chandigarh SOI unit president Vicky Middukhera denied it.

“We can’t have any alliance with the NSUI. We have now the highest number of members in the executive committee of students’ council,” he said. NSUI also denied officially that it had a truck with its arch rival SOI.

“We did not have any alliance. I told you we have strength of 34 DRs and we have got 35 votes,” said NSUI leader Manoj Lubana.

About the loss, Harman Deep of SFS said: “We did not take the elections seriously. Others ganged up against us.”

President of students’ council Kanupriya said: “We have to figure out what happened. I am surprised at the loss of Kumar Gautam. I did not strategise for this election.”