Independent candidate Anurag Dalal has created history in the elections held today for the Punjab University Students Union. For the first time in the history of the university, an independent candidate has been elected to the post of president. Anurag Dalal has won the post of President of Punjab University Campus Students Council (PUCSC) with 3,434 votes. He defeated his rival Prince Chaudhary of Aam Aadmi Party’s student organization CYSS. Prince Chaudhary got 3129 votes, BJP’s student wing ABVP candidate Arpita Malik got 1114 votes and Congress student wing NSUI candidate Rahul Jain got 497 votes.
This is a double blow for the Congress. In last year’s Punjab University student union elections, Congress’s NSUI’s Jatinder Singh won the President’s seat by 603 votes but this year he lost the post. The surprising thing is that Anurag Dalal, who was elected President, resigned from NSUI and won this election as an independent candidate.
Earlier, voting took place amid tight security. Voting began at 9.30 am and continued till 11 am. 15,854 students of the university were eligible to vote. Archit Garg of NSUI won the election for the post of vice president. Jaswinder Rana of ABVP won the election for the post of joint secretary by defeating Rohit Sharma of SPSU.
Dalal, a resident of Rohtak, contested the election after rebelling against NSUI
Anurag Dalal was associated with the Congress student organization NSUI, but this time the party fielded Rahul Nain as its candidate for the post of president. Anurag rebelled against this and contested the election as an independent candidate and created history by winning the election. On the other hand, NSUI candidate Rahul Nain got only 497 votes. Anurag Dalal said that his family has no connection with politics. His parents are teachers, while he is a PhD scholar. He is from Rohtak, Haryana. He said that he will support the rights of the students and the council will run with everyone’s cooperation. He said that he has no intention of joining any party as of now.
There were 23 candidates in the election fray
Voting was held for student council elections in Punjab University and ten colleges of Chandigarh. A total of 23 candidates including 9 candidates for the post of president were in the fray in the PU student union elections. 112 students had filed their candidature for four posts in ten colleges of the city. Eight candidates tried their luck for the post of president, four for the post of secretary, five for the post of vice-president and six for the post of joint secretary. Prince Chaudhary of Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS), Rahul Nain of National Student Union of India (NSUI), Tarun Sidhu of Student Organization of India (SOI) and Sara Sharma of Punjab Student Union-Lalkar (PSU-Lalkar) were in the race for the post of president.
Arpita Malik of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), Alka of Ambedkar Student Forum (ASF), independent Anurag Dalal and Mukul Chauhan of Team Mukul were also contesting for the post of PUCSC president. For the post of vice-president, Abhishek Kapoor of ABVP, Archit Garg of NSUI, Karanvir Kumar of University Student Organisation (USO) and Shivani were in the fray. For the post of secretary, Jashanpreet Singh of Punjab University Students’ Organisation (SOPU), Paras Parashar of NSUI, Shivanandan Rikhi of ABVP and Vineet Yadav of Indian National Student Organisation (INSO) were in the fray. For the post of joint secretary, Amit Banga of Punjab University Students’ Union (PUSU), Jaswinder Rana of ABVP, Rohit Sharma of Himachal Pradesh Students’ Union, Shubham of Hindustan Students’ Union and two other candidates were in the fray.
