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Panjab University senate’s key contest this week
The constituency of faculties will go to polls and six candidates each from the Goyal group and BJP-aligned group will battle it out
The constituency of faculties of Panjab University (PU) senate is set to go to polls on September 1 with a contest between the candidates of Goyal group and the candidates aligned with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) group.
Of the total 12 in fray, each group has fielded six candidates from the six faculties. From this constituency, which has 755 eligible voters, six members will be elected to the senate. Since all the faculties of PU campus will vote, campaigning for the elections has been going on in full swing in the last few days.
Both Ashok Goyal and Navdeep Goyal, who had forged an alliance during the syndicate elections of 2018, are contesting. While all the candidates of Goyal group have remained the members of the PU senate in the past, the five BJP group candidates are contesting for the first time.
There are five major faculties at PU including languages, arts, sciences, law and medical. The combined faculty includes all other minor ones.
Navdeep Goyal pitted against former PUTA president
Former senator and syndicate member Navdeep Goyal is contesting against former president of Panjab University Teachers’ Association (PUTA) Promila Pathak from the faculty of science.
From the faculty of arts, ex-senator and former dean faculty of arts Ronki Ram from the Goyal group will contest against Anju Suri, a first-timer. Ram said, “I will do my best to strengthen the social sciences stream at PU. We will make efforts to create better conditions for teaching and research in the university.”
The Goyal group has fielded former PUTA president Rajesh Gill against Gurpal Singh, who is a former dean, faculty of languages. Gurpal said, “In the past years, the language faculty has remained under-represented in the senate. The focus will be on the consolidation of faculty in these departments and upliftment of infrastructure.”
From combined faculty, Naval Kishore will battle it out against Keshav Malhotra of the Goyal group. From the faculty of law, Anu Chatrath of the Goyal Group has been pitted against Jagjot Singh Lalli.
So far, polling has been conducted for six constituencies of the senate and 26 candidates have been declared elected.
PGIMER doctor in the fray too
Ashok Goyal, a powerful candidate from the Goyal group, is contesting against Dr Sarvdeep Singh Dhatt of the medical faculty.
Dr Dhatt, who is contesting the senate elections for the first time, is an additional professor of orthopaedics at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh.
