Last call: Cafe meetings, SMS...

DELHI UNIVERSITY: Try as you might, to avoid them, student groups will catch you wherever you are. Be it coffee shops and eating-joints around colleges or SMS and e-mail accounts, nothing is being left out. Wednesday, the last day of campaigning for DUSU polls saw all this and much more, especially since attendence across colleges was extremely thin.
Students chose to stay away from classes on Wednesday, a working day in DU, although Delhi government declared it a public holiday.But where there is a will, there is a way, and student groups definitely found their''s, with just a slight shift in the gear.
Instead of bothering to tour colleges, candidates resorted to catching the voters wherever they were. Coffee shops, eating-joints, bookshops and other areas frequented by students around colleges, became the target. Others stuck to group meetings and touring colleges in south, east and outer Delhi.
Throwing stickers, small posters and leaflets around colleges and even on the main roads of the city was another tactic. This, much to the irritation of the motorists, seemed to come in the way of the vehicles from which they were being thrown out.
"Nothing much has happened in campus today. But we saw campaigners approaching students in Kamla Nagar," said Ranjeet Sanyal, an MA student at DU. Keeping with the tradition followed by leaders of their parent parties, student groups even went door-to-door, seeking votes.
Another first this year round has been e-mails and SMSes to prospective voters. The database for this comes from information forms that students filled in a career fair held recently at DU. College records are another source of information for the student groups. As a candidate said, "If students are not there in colleges, we will go wherever they are, to seek their support. E-mails and SMS is just another way of campaigning. If that can be used during Assembly and Lok Sabha polls, why not now ?"