Chandigarh: NOTA outperforms few candidates in PU polls

For the president’s post, out of 9,613 valid votes, NOTA secured 188 votes; interestingly, one of the candidates, Navneet Kaur, managed to secure only 136 votes, which was lower than NOTA

The Panjab University Campus Students Council (PUCSC) elections concluded on Wednesday with major student leaders winning key posts, but a striking feature of this year’s polls was the sizeable number of votes cast under the “None of the Above” (NOTA) option across all four positions.

Sarabjeet Singh of KCSU in high spirits after being elected as council president of SGGSC-26. (Ravi Kumar/HT)

For the president’s post, out of 9,613 valid votes, NOTA secured 188 votes. Interestingly, one of the candidates, Navneet Kaur, managed to secure only 136 votes, which was lower than NOTA.

In the contest for vice-president post, NOTA polled 335 votes, surpassing official candidate Esha Chander, who managed only 120 votes. The NOTA share here accounted for 3.4% of the total 9,593 votes cast.

The highest NOTA share emerged in the secretary’s race, where the option drew 464 votes out of 9,544, representing 4.8% of the electorate. Similarly, in the joint secretary’s contest, NOTA recorded 410 votes out of 9,535, making up 4.2% of total ballots.