Yet, the high-energy campus atmosphere typical of past election seasons was missing. With colleges thin on attendance due to Friday’s Raksha Bandhan holiday, the final push ahead of Monday’s voting remained unusually quiet.
On the final day of student council campaigning, candidates hit the gates and marched from class to class to distribute their panel codes before the Saturday deadline.
On the eve of Raksha Bandhan, in DAV College, Sector 10, Post Graduate Government College, Sector 11, Sri Guru Gobind Singh College, Sector 26 and GGDSD College, Sector 32 candidates of SOI, NSUI, HIMSU, PUSU, ISO, SDCU, KCSU, CSF got Rakhi tied from students and gave them chocolates. For the student council elections 39,386 students are set to vote in eight city colleges on Monday with 76 candidates contesting for four posts in each institute. The number of voters is comparatively low from last year’s 43860 voters when elections had taken place in 9 colleges. Last year, the voter turn out in all colleges was less than 30%. In PGGC-10, Panjab University Students’ Organisation is contesting for president’s post in alliance with SOI, HIMSU and Independent Student Front. The other main contender in PGGC-11 is HSA fielding their candidate for president post in alliance with ABVP, HPSU and independent candidate Zoban Mittal for joint secretary and NSUI is contesting for vice president post alone. In SGGSC-26, the competition is between College Student Front and Khalsa College Student Union. In PGGCG-11, ABVP is contesting on full panel, Gandhi Group of Student Union, on three posts, president, vice president and general secretary.
Due to the long weekend, student parties fear low voter turn out as many voters had gone home for Raksha Bandhan celebrations. The voter turnout was less due to rain on election day as well and this time long weekend cast a shadow on voter turnout. Other than the usual campaigning, students went on to celebrate festivals as part of approaching students. With Teej festival during the election time, a party went on to distribute henna and chocolate to female students. One of the candidates was seen visiting Mansa Devi temple, seeking blessings before elections and posting the same on their party’s social media page. SOI is contesting in alliance with INSO.
