PU to assign fixed time slots for political events on south campus

With South campus witnessing frequent brawls between various students’ groups, Panjab University has decided to allot fixed time slots to them to hold political events like rallies, announcement sessions and other activities at the Sector-25 campus, which mostly houses professional institutes like University Institute of Engineering and Technology (UIET), Dental Sciences college and University Institute of Applied Management Studies (UIAMS) among others.

In UIET alone, there are twenty five hundred voters followed by 500 voters in dental sciences college and 350 in UIAMS. The south campus constitutes almost one third of total voters for the Panjab University Student Council (PUCSC) elections and therefore, plays a decisive role in the formation of the student council.

Like every year, student parties are trying hard to attract new voters and keep them intact and carry out rallies and hold announcement sessions in which not only PU students but outsiders also participate. Often, a sign of strength, such sessions result in brawls on the campus among members of the student bodies. “They hold rallies during the lunch hour ie between 12 to 2pm outside UIET canteen, where students from other departments also gather. Members from different parties simultaneously gather at the same place, resulting in lawlessness,” a top official said.

PU has so far recorded two such incidents involving workers from National Students of India, Panjab University Student Union and Student Organisation of India. Members of both the parties had a clash at south campus when they were seen carrying out rallies at the same time.

In the past, the fixed time slots used to be a feature after the model code of conduct, but owing to a volatile situation on the campus, the varsity has decided to impose restrictions, even before the elections.
Dean Student Welfare (DSW), Navdeep Goyal said a few incidents of parties carrying out rallies at the same time had come to their notice.

“It has become imperative for us to impose certain restrictions as the kind of activities some student parties have been indulging in results in lawlessness,” Goyal said adding that even though PU was yet to decide whether to hold elections or not but from now onward time slots would be given to parties at UIET campus to avoid violence on campus in the run up to polls.

Finally, posters removed

In the past two days, the exteriors of various departments and other public places have undergone a sea change following Chandigarh police registering FIR against 27 student leaders in defacement of public places case. Various student bodies have removed posters from the Student Centre, departments, canteens, trees and other places.Not only this, fearing crackdown, the student bodies have also removed posters from the designated sites allotted for the purpose. The police had booked 27 leaders from the campus for defacing the public property on Saturday. The accused leaders have been asked to join the investigations on Tuesday.