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With former president on board, AAP’s student wing set to make debut in PU elections
With former president of the Panjab University Campus Student Council (PUCSC), Nishant Kaushal, on board, Aam Aadmi Party’s student wing, Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS), is set to make its debut in the elections this year
With former president of the Panjab University Campus Student Council (PUCSC), Nishant Kaushal, on board, Aam Aadmi Party’s student wing, Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS), is set to make its debut in the elections this year.
Kaushal, who was elected PUCSC president from Panjab University Students’ Union (PUSU) in 2016, and many other student leaders joined CYSS on Wednesday in the presence of Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann and his Delhi counterpart and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal.
Apart from Kaushal, Sumit Ruhal, former president of National Student Organization (NSO); Navaldeep, former president of Panjab University Student Union (PUSU); Vinod Dahiya, former president, National Students Union of India (NSUI); Amit Dhanda of NSO, Sanjeev Chaudhary, former chairman of ABVP; Paras Rattan, former president of ABVP and Ravinder Gill, former president of SFPU also joined CYSS.
“We will launch the CYSS team at the university within the next few days and are ready to contest this year’s student election. We will make every effort to win,” said Kaushal.
AAP had floated a student wing, Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS), in Chandigarh in 2020 with 12 members, but it eventually faded away.
The elections haven’t been conducted since the term of the outgoing council ended on May 31, 2020, as the varsity had switched to virtual classrooms amid the pandemic. However, the date for the elections haven’t been decided yet and student bodies have been demanding its announcement.
In the 2019 polls, Chetan Chaudhary of Student Organisation of India (SOI) was elected PUCSC president and in 2018, Kanupriya from Students For Society (SFS) became the first woman president.
New front comes up
A group of students has also launched a new front – Panjab University Student Front – this year and are also getting ready for their debut. Although they have not announced a panel so far, PUSF is expected to form an alliance with CYSS. PUSF recently took part in various protests on campus as well.
Old parties resurface
The student wings - Panjab University Students Union (PUSU) and Students Organisation of Panjab University (SOPU) - have also started making their presence felt on campus. However, PUSU’s presence seems more prominent this year.
Once prominent student wings, PUSU) and SOPU had fought to bounce back in recent years as mainstream political outfits entered the arena of student politics. According to PUSU leaders, they are planning to contest independently this year, after they had an alliance with Students Organisation of India (SOI) in the 2019 polls. Notably, PUSU had won all four posts in 2016.
PUSU’s Kulmanbir Nagra, said, “We plan to contest independently this year and we want to convey that we need a student leadership without political affiliations.”
Presidential candidates yet to be announced
Even though they have started campaigning, major student parties including National Students Union of India (NSUI), Students Organisation of India (SOI) and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) are yet to decide their presidential candidates. SOI is yet to have decide its election in-charge and ABVP too has no election committee chairman yet.
The pandemic had come as a setback for student bodies and this year’s elections are likely to be closely contested. No student body seems to have an obvious edge so far, as most of the students will be participating in the polls for the first time. Almost all the student bodies are doing the groundwork to reach the maximum number of voters.
