Chandigarh: Elections are near, ‘old horses’ are missing

Chandigarh: With just five days left for polling for the Panjab University Campus Students’ Council (PUCSC) elections, ‘old horses’ are yet to jump into action to plan garnering of votes.

As presence of outsiders is banned on the university campus, these seasoned politicians, who spent their university days working for the students’ political groups and had remained active in the university politics, were expected to start managing elections behind the scenes from outside the campus. However, the recent reported infighting in the majority of the ‘front runner’ groups perhaps made these seasoned individuals to stay ‘silent’.

In the past, the ‘seniors’ of groups like the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and the Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS) would rather take the charge of campaigning, planning and execution months before the announcement of the students’ council elections.

Notably, all these parties have either won the elections or emerged the biggest competitors in the PUCSC elections in recent years.

In the 2022 elections, when the CYSS had won the elections, Sanjeev Chaudhary (ex-chairman and election in-charge of ABVP in 2019), Sumit Ruhal (former president, National Students’ Organisation), Paras Rattan (ex-campus president of ABVP, its 2019 presidential candidate), Navaldeep (former president, PUCSC), Vinod Dahiya (former president, NSUI), Nishant Kaushal (former president, PUCSC), Amit Dhanda (founder, NSO) and Ravinder Gill (former president, Student Federation of Panjab University) were given the task to ensure the win of the party. Some of them were suitably awarded for guiding the CYSS to their debut win in the PUCSC elections.

The story was no different the following year, as the NUSI’s presidential candidate won the election and seasoned politicians like Manoj Lubana (state president, IYC Chandigarh), Sachin Galav (councillor, Chandigarh Municipal Corporation) and Sikander Boora (former president, Chandigarh NSUI) were given the credit of scripting the victory.

The ABVP planning had remained the same, at least in the last two elections, when they had invited former zonal organising secretary Vijay Pratap, along with former ABVP campus leader Dinesh Chauhan and many others.

“The involvement of seniors is very less this year. Differences have cropped up in all groups with each passing day and no one wants to take the responsibility. The ‘seasoned’ politicians are nowhere around to support their groups,” said a senior functionary of a group contesting all four posts.

“Many leaders have pulled out their names willingly. They actually wanted to prove their importance. Very less ‘old’ faces were witnessed during the filing of nominations this time. The ‘old horses’ carry a good face value on the campus and the groups will realise as the D-Day approaches,” said a representative of another group.

The PUCSC election is known to be the biggest platform for the region’s aspiring future politicians.