Panjab University Campus Students Council

Panjab University Campus Students Council or PUCSC is Students' union consisting of the departmental representatives and other office bearers i.e. President, Vice-President, Secretary and Joint-Secretary along with 114 Departmental Representatives (DRs) directly elected by the students from the various teaching departments on the Panjab University, Chandigarh campus. Further, these elected office-bearers and department representatives elect the remaining five members of the executive of the Council. The Dean Student Welfare is ex officio Chairman of the Council. Elections are held every year in August–September months. There is ban on property defacement for clean elections.

Panjab University has over 70% female students but only 15-20% of girl students vote or participate in election process, therefore the Council president’s post was never headed by a girl in the history of the university elections. Thus PUCSC politics are dominated by male students only. As of 2015, PU has about 13681 student voters with UIET having largest voters about 1897 students. But sometimes UIET and Law Dept. gets less representation in Election panels. Freebies are offered by Student organisations to lure students especially freshers by movie tickets, free meals, Disc Parties, free trips etc. Parties have to overcome regional and language barriers of students as University has students from different parts of India. In 2015, along with student council elections PU authorities also conducted a referendum to decide whether campus should be made a vehicle-free zone or not. In 2015, there was only 56% voting as only 8,131 voters out of total 14,000 voted. In 2016, NOTA was introduced first time in Campus elections and was used by 6 to 9 percent of students.

Elections are also held in Colleges only in Chandigarh that are affiliated to Panjab University and these are:

There are many issues that is a responsibility of Council to solve.

Since 1977, Council was usually represented by students leaders of campus based parties like SOPU (Student Organisation of Panjab University) and PUSU (Panjab University Student's Union). But in 2013, first time Congress affiliated NSUI won Council President's post. In 2015, as another surprise, first time PUCSC president from Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal)'s student wing SOI was elected. In 2016, Amritpal Singh, first presidential candidate in PU from Students For Society (SFS) gave impressive performance with 2494 votes first time in Campus student Politics due to its successful rallies.

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