Now, Panjab University senate polls to start on May 3

Were scheduled to start on Monday with the election of six members from the faculties, which has now been postponed to May 19

The polling for the election of six members to the senate from the faculties of Panjab University has been postponed from Monday (April 26) to May 19.

The senate polls will now start with the election for the constituencies of principals and staff of technical and professional colleges. (HT File)

Now, the senate polls will begin on May 3, with the election for the constituencies of principals and staff of technical and professional colleges.

Six members are elected to the PU senate from the faculty of arts, science, medical science, languages, law and combined faculties. Twelve candidates are in fray from the constituency, which has 754 eligible voters. There is no change in the schedule of the other seven constituencies of the PU senate so far.

The decision comes two days after the university had announced that the meetings of faculties will be held online on Monday, prior to the physical voting at the venues.

The order issued on Saturday states that the varsity has received representations from some members of the faculties, seeking postponement of the election, as they won’t be able to participate due to the Covid surge.

It also mentioned that concerns have been raised over the validity of online meetings of faculties in the absence of any supporting provision in the PU calendar.

Subhash Sharma of BJP group, who has objected to online meetings of faculties, said, “The election process should be held as per the rules and regulations in the PU calendar. The meetings of the faculties cannot be held online, as it is illegal, and we won’t take part in it.”

Goyal group raise concern over postponement

In a letter issued to voters, members of Goyal group who were contesting from the constituency of faculties, expressed concern over the varsity’s move to reschedule election at this stage.

Navdeep Goyal, Ashok Goyal, Keshav Malhotra, Rajesh Gill, Ronki Ram and Anu Chatrath in the letter said that the move is in defiance of a High Court order. They said that the election was rescheduled just 48 hours prior to voting and the only agenda is to delay and defeat the democratic process.

Navdeep Goyal said, “If this is the case, then all decisions taken by the university in online meetings are invalid. The semester exams were held in online mode twice and the meetings of Board of Finance (BoF) was also held in online mode in absence of any such regulation in the PU calendar. With the logic given for rescheduling the elections, there will be a big question mark on the degrees issued by PU in contravention to regulations.”

Former senator Ashok Goyal, said, “It is the outright murder of democracy by forces who do not want elections to be held. It has already been delayed by more than eight months. We demand an independent inquiry into how this happened.”