The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), retained the president’s post in the Panjab University Campus Students Council (PUCSC) on Monday, with its candidate Ankit Bidhan defeating Aadil Brar of the Association of Students for Alternative Politics (ASAP) by 512 votes. This is the party’s second consecutive win on the campus, after securing its first-ever win at PU last year.
This year’s victory comes as a major boost for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the upcoming municipal elections in Chandigarh and assembly elections in Punjab, especially in the backdrop of the satirical Cockroach Janta Party’s (CJP) month-long stir at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, which was feared to have dented the saffron party’s connect with young voters, especially the GenZ. Many of the GenZ voters (those born after 1997) will be voting for the first time in these upcoming state and civic body elections.
Bidhan polled 3,149 votes, while Brar, who fought from the student wing candidate of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which is in power in Punjab, secured 2,637 votes. Gurman Singh Sidhu of the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), the wing of the Congress, finished third with 2,263 votes. Darshpreet Singh of Sath, a Punjab-based student group, stood fourth with 1,387 votes.
In all, 58.6% of the total registered voters turned up for what remained a largely peaceful polling.
{{/usCountry}}In all, 58.6% of the total registered voters turned up for what remained a largely peaceful polling.
{{/usCountry}}Buzz of a BJP-SAD alliance
The fact that the Students Organisation of India (SOI), the wing of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), had thrown its weight behind the ABVP in these elections has also led to buzz that the two parent parties may finally bury the hatchet and come together for the Punjab elections due early next year. The two parties had snapped its over two-decade-long alliance in 2020 amid a farmers’ agitation over the now repealed farm laws.
Last year, SOI’s presidential candidate Seerat had polled 422 votes. This year, ABVP’s winning margin itself stood at 512 votes.
When asked about the possibility of the parent parties forming an alliance, Bidhan said the decision would be taken by the state leadership. He added that the current alliance was limited to the PU polls.
Meanwhile, BJP leaders are projecting the win as a Gen-Z mandate. Former Member of Parliament and PU senator Satya Pal Jain, who was also the PUCSC general secretary in 1974, said, “The youngsters are backing the BJP and their student wing. The credit for this goes to the local ABVP leadership.” Bidhan too, after the election, asserted that the victory is not his alone of all GenZ, who have ABVP and Narendra Modi in their hearts.
2 Independents on other posts
The ABVP, however, did not win the remaining posts. Armaan Singh Bhinder of the recently formed Panjab University Diplomatic Front (PUDF), a non-political outfit, won the vice-president’s post with 3,322 votes, defeating National Students’ Union of India’s (NSUI) Aakanksha Thakur, who polled 2,818 votes. PUDF had an alliance with ASAP.
Independent candidate Dhyan Singh won the general secretary’s post with 4,045 votes, defeating Aryan Saharan of the Indian National Students Organisation (INSO), a Haryana-based student outfit, who secured 3,673 votes. Singh had a tie-up with NSUI. Independent candidate Vishal Bamal won the joint secretary’s post with 3,506 votes, defeating Devraj Singh Nain of the Hindustan Students Association (HSA), another Haryana-linked student outfit, by the largest margin among the four major contests. Nain polled 2,338 votes.