SOI alliance sweeps Panjab University polls

Aarti Kapur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 26

An alliance of four parties, led by Student Organisation of India (SOI), the youth wing of Shiromani Akali Dal, swept the Panjab University Campus Student Council elections on Wednesday, by bagging all four seats.

On all four posts, the alliance’s panel won by the margin nearly double or more than double, defeating its opponents, especially NSUI, the youth wing of the Congress and winner for last two consecutive years.

This time, the SOI+HIMSU+NSO+INSO alliance had unconditional support from GGSU, PPSO and YUWA.

Each party of the winning alliance contested one seat each. While SOI contested for the post of president, HIMSU for vice-president, NSO for secretary and INSO for the post of joint secretary. Jasmeen Kang was elected president, Preeti Negi as vice-president, Rishi Bhardwaj as secretary and Swati Tiwana as joint secretary, a university spokesman said here.

Preeti Negi won by the highest margin of 3,777 votes. As per university sources, 57 per cent of votes were polled in the election.

The Akali Dal had launched its youth wing on the campus in 2006. However, SOI contested the council elections for the first time in 2013 when the party was re-launched after a senior SOPU leader joined it. It contested the elections that year and lost the president’s post by a margin of 58 votes.

SOI coordinator Parambans Singh Romana said the students of Panjab University have rejected other parties and given mandate to SOI which scripted history by winning all the four seats.

BJP-backed ABVP finished at second spot on the posts of president, vice-president and general secretary.

Congress-backed NSUI finished second on the post of secretary. In the last elections, NSUI had bagged all the four posts. The polls remained peaceful as no untoward incident was reported, police said. — With PTI inputs