The cockroach may have become the unlikely mascot of student anger at Panjab University this election season, but for many students, the ballot box is still about something far more mundane, a room in a hostel, decent food, functioning gym equipment and whether the campus feels safe and cared for.
With Punjab’s next assembly election looming, the PU campus may therefore offer more than just a student election result. The emergence of the Cockroach Janta Party and the uproar around issues raised by student groups, has brought a large sense of frustration with the university system into the spotlight. Social media has become an outlet for students to voice their discontent, turning what might once have remained corridor conversations into campus-wide debates. students say the real election battle is still being fought over hostels, clean washrooms, sanitation and everyday campus life While it has given voice to a wider sense of frustration. Conversations with students suggest that the election itself remains intensely hyperlocal. For her and many others, election promises matter only when they translate into real changes which the students can see in their daily lives. The contrast captures the character of university politics: while the Cockroach Janta Party has tapped into a broader anti-system sentiment, campus elections are ultimately fought over a microcosm of everyday governance. The larger question is whether this year’s poll will produce a political statement or another mandate for better hostels, cleaner campuses and a university that works a little better for those who live in it.
“Last year there was so much hype around the elections, but the issues are still the same,” said Mehak, a second-year University Institute of Engineering and Technology (UIET) student.
