For the first time in the history of Panjab University it was the Congress affiliated National Students Union of India which made an impact by bagging two posts of President and Joint-Secretary.
NSUI presidential candidate, Chandan Rana won the Panjab University election by more than 800 votes, the result of which were declared here on Wednesday evening after a long delay. According to the University authorities the student council election of 2013 was more or less peaceful but the Student Council of Panjab University and the Panjab University Students Union supporters alleged that there was mass scale election code violation.
As the counting reached mid way it was clear that NSUI is going to win the President’s post. It was for the first time in the history of PU that both its popular parties the PUSU and SOPU failed to show any major impact.
However, the PUSU alliance backed candidate Disha Arora won the post of Vice-president and Abha Sharma of the same alliance won the post of General Secretary. The post of join secretary was won by Sunny Mehta of the NSUI. It has been announced that the executive council will be formed on September 7. NSUI’s win suggest that the student council politics in PU has now taken a new turn and it all started a year back with the visit of Rahul Gandhi at the Panjab University Campus on October 11, 2012.
NSUI is a national-level students’ party backed by Congress ideology. Earlier both SOPU and the PUSU used to be the hot favorites of different national and regional parties as an ally but with the visit of the scion of Gandhi Family things started changing. Prominent leaders of both the Panjab University student parties moved on to join NSUI because the career in politics was bleak with backing of a student party whereas allying with a national party paved way for better career in politics.
On the receiving end both the SOPU and the PUSU saw a major polarization of there leader into NSUI. PUSU chairman Jeewanjot Chahal, PUSU chief Sanjeev Sharma; SOPU incharge Bhupinder Bhatt, SOPU Chief Manoj lubana 'Mauji', along with their 25 supporters, had joined the NSUI soon after Rahul’s visit.
The 2013-14 election proved out to be fatal for these local student parties as the main support behind them staggered. On the other hand the Congress which is desperate to find its footing in Punjab banked upon this opportunity to woe the youth into their wing. If we go by the election results in 2010, PUSU and allies won the election; in 2009 and 2008 SOPU allies emerged victorious; and in 2007, the power was with PUSU and its allies. NSUI was nowhere to be seen but with leaders from this party joining the NSUI for 2013 elections it was the national student party which had the last laugh.
However the NSUI didn’t wanted to leave any stone unturned to bolster its win at the PU prominent faces of SOPU- Brinder Dhillon, Harpreet Multani and Dalvir Singh ‘Goldy’ were also inducted into the party just to come out strong and victorious. Chandan Rana, 26 who is PhD scholar from the Department of Biophysics, was NSUI’s choice for president’s post which brought the support of many students from Himachal Pradesh and the strategic alliance with the Himachal Pradesh Student Union. However Rana himself was active in politics backed by SOPU before he joined NSUI in 2012.