Panjab University senate polls to witness ‘stalwarts vs first-timers’

CHANDIGARH: With Panjab University faculty senate elections scheduled for August this year, it will be ‘stalwart vs first timer’ this time, instead of Goyal’s group vs BJP-DAV group. The two groups are in the fray and the alliance between Navdeep Goyal-Ashok Goyal will continue in the upcoming elections and the other is the BJP-DAV group.
While Goyals are the renowned stalwarts on the campus, their team has been the winners in the past senate elections too. Contrary to which, the BJPDAV group are the new faces.

The oldest contender, who is being fielded by the Goyal group, is Ashok Goyal, a sitting syndicate member, who will contest the senate elections under the medical faculty for the seventh time and has been the winner in the past. The BJPDAV group has fielded Dr Sarvdeep Singh Dhatt, who is a first timer, opposite Ashok Goyal. It is almost after a decade that someone from the medical faculty is contesting the elections to represent their fraternity.
Professor Ronki Ram, who will be contesting from the arts faculty, has been nominated and elected twice, is also in the fray for the fifth time opposite Anju Suri from the BJP-DAV group, who is the present chairperson of the history department of PU.
Stalwart leader Navdeep Goyal, who was the former dean student welfare (DSW) and is currently a syndicate member, is also in the fray for the third time for the faculty of science opposite former PUTA president Promila Pathak. Interestingly, when Promila was elected as the president of PUTA, she was backed by Navdeep Goyal group on the campus, after which she was unanimously elected for the post.
In the last senate elections, Ashok Goyal fielded Keshav Malhotra from the language, who won the seat. BJP-DAV group’s Gurpal Singh Sandhu, who is the present dean publications and was the dean languages. He is a first timer.
For law faculty, former senior senator G K Chatrath’s daughter Anu Chatrath is again fielded by the Goyal group. She is going to contest elections for the fourth time. Jagjot Singh Lalli, who is the former vicepresident of the bar association of Punjab and Haryana, is going to contest for this faculty for the first time from the BJP-DAV group.
Former dean student welfare Naval Kishore, who is also in the fray, is going to contest from combined faculty against threetime winner Keshav Malhotra, who fought from the language in the past. Navdeep Goyal, leading the Goyal’s group, said why their senior leaders do not try their luck in the democratic elections of the senate to show their strength.