Panjab University Campus Students Council or PUCSC is Students' union consisting of the departmental representatives and other office bearers like President, Vice-President, Secretary and Joint-Secretary along with 123 Departmental Representatives (DRs) [1] [2] directly elected by the students from the various teaching departments on the Panjab University, Chandigarh campus. [3] [4] Furthermore, these elected office-bearers and department representatives elect the remaining five members of the executive of the Council. [5] The Dean Student Welfare is ex officio Chairman of the Council. Elections are held every year in August–September months. [6] There is ban on property defacement for clean elections. [7]
Panjab University has over 60% female students [8] but only 15-20% of girl students vote or participate in election process, [9] and until 2018, the Council president’s post was never headed by a girl in the history of the university elections. [10] [11] Thus PUCSC politics are mostly dominated by male students. [12] As of 2018, PU has about 15541 student voters with UIET having the most voters, about 2451 students followed by UILS with 1345 and Department of Laws with 1050. [13] But sometimes UIET and Law Dept. get less representation in Election panels. [14] Freebies are offered by Student organisations to lure students especially freshers by movie tickets, free meals, Disc Parties, free trips, etc. [15] [16] Parties have to overcome regional and language barriers of students as the university has students from different parts of India. [17] In 2015, along with student council elections, PU authorities also conducted a referendum to decide whether campus should be made a vehicle-free zone or not. [18] In 2015, there was only a 56% turnout with 8,131 voters out of total 14,000 voted. [19] In 2016, NOTA was introduced first time in campus elections and was used by 6 to 9 percent of students. [20]
In the academic year 2018-19, PUCSC's budget was ₹35.8 lakh (US$45,000).
Elections are also held in Colleges only in Chandigarh that are affiliated to Panjab University [22] and these are:
There are many issues that is a responsibility of Council to solve.
Since 1977, the Council was usually represented by students leaders of campus-based parties like SOPU (Student Organisation of Panjab University) and PUSU (Panjab University Students' Union). But in 2013, first time Congress-affiliated NSUI won the Council President's post new President of Panjab University Ayush Khatkar from (Jind, Haryana). [38] In 2015, as another surprise, first-time PUCSC president from Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal)'s student wing SOI was elected. [39] In 2016, Amritpal Singh, first SC [40] presidential candidate in PU from Students For Society (SFS) gave an impressive performance with 2494 votes [41] [42] the first time in campus student politics [43] [44] due to its successful rallies. [45] In 2018 Kanupriya was elected as the first female president of PUCSC, of Panjab University, from SFS. [46] [47] In October 2022, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) students’ wing Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS) candidate Aayush Khatkar became the President of PUCSC. [48]
President | Student Organization | Duration | First Runner-up | Student Organization |
---|---|---|---|---|
Jatinder Singh | NSUI | 2023-2024 | Divyansh Thakur | CYSS |
Aayush Khatkar | CYSS | 2022-2023 | Harish Gujjar | ABVP |
NA | NA | 2021-2022 | - | - |
NA | NA | 2020-2021 | - | - |
Chetan [49] | SOI | 2019–2020 | Paras Rattan | ABVP-INSO |
Kanupriya [50] [51] | SFS [52] | 2018–2019 | Ashish Rana [53] | NSUI ABVP [54] |
Jashan kamboj | NSUI-GGSU [55] | 2017–2018 | Hassanpreet Kaur | SFS |
Nishant Kaushal [56] | PUSU-NSO | 2016-2017 | Piyush Anand | SOI-ABVP-INSO |
Jasmeen Kang | SOI-NSO | 2015–2016 | Baljinder Singh | PUSU-ABVP |
Divyanshu Budhiraja | NSUI-NSO | 2014–2015 | Rachit Duggal | SOPU-SOI |
Chandan Rana | NSUI | 2013-2014 | Satwant Singh | PUSU-NSO-ABVP-INSO |
Satinder Singh Satti | SOPU-HSA-NSO | 2012–2013 | Abhinav Puri | PUSU-NSUI |
Pushpinder Sharma | SOPU | 2011–2012 | Sumit Goklaney | PUSU |
Gurvindervir Singh Aulakh | PUSU-INSO | 2010–2011 | Mohit Taneja |
PUCSC Elected Office Bearers for last 10 years
S. No. | Duration | President | Student Organisation | Vice President | Student Organisation | General Secretary | Student Organisation | Joint-Secretary | Student Organisation | Ref |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. | 2023-24 | Jatinder Singh | NSUI | Ranmeekjot Kaur | SATH | Deepak Goyak | INSO | Gourav Chahal | PUHH | [57] |
2. | 2022-23 | Ayush Khatkar | CYSS | H.S. Baath | NSUI | Parvesh Bishnoi | INSO | Manish Boora | NSUI | [58] |
3. | 2021-22 | Elections Cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to non commencement of classes due to Covid-19 | [59] | |||||||
4. | 2020-21 | |||||||||
5. | 2019-20 | Chetan Chaudhary | SOI | Rahul Kumar | NSUI | Tegbir Singh | NSUI | Manpreet Singh | NSUI | [60] |
6. | 2018-19 | Kanupriya | SFS | Daler Singh | SOI | Amarinder Singh | SOI | Vipul Atray | NSUI | [61] |
7. | 2017-18 | Jashan Kamboj | NSUI | Karanvir S Mahal | NSUI | Vani Sood | NSUI | Karanbir S Randhawa | PUSU | [62] |
In 1974, Ajaib Singh founded Progressive Students’ Union (PSU) as in 1977 first elected president was Bhupinderpal Singh Khosa. PUSU was formed in 1977 and SOPU in 1985 [63] while NSUI first contested at PU Campus in 1997 and ABVP won an office-bearer post in 2000. [64] Different Organisations take part in Activities and compaigning. [65]
These student organisations participate in PUCSC elections:
Panjab University (PU) is an Indian collegiate public state university located in Chandigarh. Funded through both State and Union governments, it is considered a state university. It traces its origins to the University of the Punjab in Lahore, which was founded in 1882. After the partition of India, the university was established on 1 October 1947, and called East Punjab University. Initially housed primarily at a cantonment in Solan, it later relocated to a newly built campus in Chandigarh, and was renamed Panjab University. It is accredited by NAAC at five star level, with the highest NAAC A++ accreditation grade.
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