Secretary Vani Sood, vice-president Karanvir Singh and president Jashan Kamboj. Jasbir Malhi
AFTER A two-year gap, the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) captured the pole position on the campus, with its win of three top seats in the Panjab University Campus Students’ Council in the election held on Thursday.
The Students for Society (SFS), Students’ Organisation of India (SOI), the student wing of the Shiromani Akali Dal, and the BJP student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) did not win any posts.
The student wing of the Congress clinched the posts of president, vice-president and the general secretary. Jashan Kamboj was declared the president of the students’ council, Karanvir Singh the vice-president, and Vani Sood the secretary for the academic session 2017-18. The joint secretary post was won by the Indian Students Association (ISA) which is in alliance with Panjab University Students Union, and went to Karanbir Singh.
Among the winning candidates, Jashan Kamboj won the president’s post with 2,801 votes, defeating by 611 votes his nearest rival Hassanpreet Kaur of SFS, who bagged 2,190 votes. Kuldeep Singh of PUSU was third with 1,692 votes, while ABVP candidate Avinash Pandey got 1,522 votes, more than SOI’s Harman Singh, who brought up the bottom with 1,190.
Karanvir Singh of NSUI won the vice-president’s post of the council by 1,338 votes. Karanvir got 3,758 votes. For the post of secretary, Vani Sood of NSUI won by a margin of 669 votes. She got a total of 2,965 votes. The joint secretary post winner, Karanbir Singh Randhawa, got 3,153 votes and he won by a margin of 375 votes.
After a frenetic campaign over two weeks, the voting began at 10 am. Counting started at 1 pm in the gymnasium hall. The final results were out by 7.30 pm, and were declared by the Dean Students Welfare (DSW) outside the gymnasium hall.
The polling percentage this time was recorded at 62 per cent. It is four per cent higher than the last elections held in 2016.
Meanwhile, apart from a few minor spats, no major scuffles were reported on the campus on the polling day.
The police had detained around 50 students in the morning from near the law department who were later released in the evening.
DSW Enamul Nahar said, “We are satisfied that the student elections have been conducted in a peaceful manner. This is the result of continuous meeting with the student council and their leaders as we held five meetings with them before elections.”
