PU polls a countdown to Punjab battle: Cong biggies vs Akali ‘money power’

SAD spends Rs 4.3 crore on solar panels for hostels and girls’ gym; Cong banking on Rahul’s Youth Congress team

All nine girls’ and eight boys’ hostels on Panjab University campus have solar water heating panels. The largesse cost the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Rs 3 crore.

Police and Pu security personnel took out a march on campus on the eve of PU student elections, on Tuesday. (Ravi Kumar/HT Photo)

The incumbent Panjab University Campus Students’ Council (PUCSC) is headed by the Student Organisation of India (SOI),a wing of the SAD. The girls’ gym of the university has also been refurbished at a cost of Rs 1.3 crore. “This all was done keeping in mind the students’ demands,” says Youth Akali Dal leader Parambans Singh Bunty Romana.

The Congress’ student wing, National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), also accuses the SOI of distributing free liquor, which Romana, who has the franchisee for liquor brand, Kingfisher, denies.

Coming barely a few months before the Punjab assembly elections, the PU elections have become a prestige battle for both the Congress and the SAD. As countdown to the 2017 assembly elections begins, the NSUI is trying to counter the SAD’s “money power” with manpower from Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s close team. While the All India Youth Congress president and Punjab MLA Amrinder Singh Raja Warring is planning the strategy along with MLAs Kuljit Nagra, Rahul aide and former MP Vijay Inder Singla, too, is camping here along with Delhi NSUI president Amrita Dhawan.

For the first time, a former CM, Bhupinder Singh Hooda of Haryana, announced the alliance of the NSUI with the Himachal Students’ Union (HIMSU) for the elections on September 1. Himachal CM Virbhadra Singh’s son Vikramaditya, too, has campaigned to woo students from the hill state.

NSUI presidential candidate Siya (right) on election eve. (Karun Sharma/HT Photo)

A student pastes NSUI stickers on her car on the campus. (Ravi Kumar/HT Photo)

Romana (C) on PU campus on Tuesday. (HT Photo)

Both the Congress and SAD are accusing each other of using “money power” to woo the 15000-odd voters, freebies are flowing freely be it pizzas, food delivery to hostels, beauty treatments or liquor.

Though SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal is managing it through Romana, Punjab Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh can be seen appealing for votes on videos. The Congress also has a splinter group, Student Front of NSUI, to contend with after the central NSUI team took charge of the elections along with Warring, who expelled Punjab Youth Congress leader Brinder Singh Dhillon on Monday for supporting the breakaway group. Dhillon, who is heading the “Jago Punjab” campaign of Congress from the residence of Amarinder in Chandigarh, attributes it to “internal politics”.

In pics || In pics: Poll fever at PU

Romana says a landslide victory in the PU polls will give a boost to the Akalis in the Punjab assembly elections. “It is the only university campus where student polls take place in this part of the country. But the Congress has betrayed its nervousness. Look at the stature of leaders who are campaigning for the NSUI. Vijay Inder Singla almost become a regular student of the university,” he adds. However, Singla says he has been on the campus for two days helping candidates. “But it remains an election of the students,” he adds.

Some of the issues set to dominate the Punjab polls are among the top issues here as well. The Congress leaders, for instance, are trying to corner the SOI on drugs’ problem. They are seen telling the students they need to rein in SOI to save the campus from drugs. Both the SAD and Congress are going for broke in the varsity polls as the winning party will love to go into the state polls wearing the PU crown and flaunt it as a sign of youth mood in its favour.

The SOI had swept the polls last year to prevent NSUI from scoring a hat-trick of wins. What the victory meant for the SOI was evident when Sukhbir turned up at the oath-taking ceremony of the new council for a “picture-perfect” finish. The victory this time will be bigger, so will the defeat.

SAD’s ‘one-man’ army

For someone who was initiated in politics as the chairman of the Faridkot Improvement Trust, Parambans Singh Bunty Romana has a quick rise in politics. A protégé of SAD president and Punjab deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal, Romana now has a franchisee of liquor brand, Kingfisher, in Punjab. The dilapidated house in Faridkot, which he later bought from his uncle, is now a plush bungalow. As a close Sukhbir aide, he now lives in Chandigarh in a two-kanal house in Sector 8. Appointed by Sukhbir as the Punjab Youth Development Board chairman, he has been given luxury Corolla car and security at his Chandigarh residence.