24 back out, 4 to fight it out for president post in Panjab University

CHANDIGARH: Candidates of four big student outfits were left in the fray for the Panjab University Campus Students’ Council (PUCSC) elections for the president’s post, with 24 others who filed their nominations on Friday withdrawing their names on Saturday primarily due to parties forging alliances.
Chetan Chaudhary of the Student Organisation of India (SOI), Nikhil Narmeta of the National Students Union of India (NSUI), Paras Rattan of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and Priya of the Student for Society (SFS) will fight it out for the top post in the elections slated for September 6.

As per the list prepared by the university, there are 16,138 total voters. A total of 167 booths will be set up in the departments of the university.
Out of the four candidates, three are from the student wings of mainstream political parties. SOI is the student-wing of Punjab-based Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), NSUI of the Congress and ABVP of the ruling BJP. The SFS, on the other hand, came into prominence in PU in 2018 when its candidate Kanupriya became the first woman to be elected as the PUCSC president in the history of the university. The party has once again fielded a woman to contest the polls, who is up against three male candidates.
All the parties have assured to solve the issues of infrastructure fund crunch, shortage of faculty and poor condition of hostels in PU in their manifestos. Ever since the session started in July, student unions have been staging dharnas and creating ruckus over 10% fee hike approved by the university for new students, in order to attract freshers to their teams.
The high-stake battle continues to witness parties violating the guidelines of the Lyngdoh committee, distributing freebies and surpassing the Rs 5,000 budget kept for canvassing.
PU’s two traditional parties, Panjab University Students’ Union (PUSU) and Students Organisation of Panjab University (SOPU), who dominated the poll scene for many years, are not contesting for the president’s posts.
For vice-president, the final nominations came down to four after withdrawals from 26 filed on Friday. Six candidates were left in fray to contest for joint secretary while four were left for the post of secretary.