Panjab University Campus Students Council or PUCSC is Students' unionconsisting of the departmental representatives and other office bearers like President, Vice-President, Secretary and Joint-Secretary along with 123 Departmental Representatives 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.
Student Representation
Panjab University has over 60% female students but only 15-20% of girl students vote or participate in election process, and until 2018, the Council president’s post was never headed by a girl in the history of the university elections. Thus PUCSC politics are mostly dominated by male students. As of 2018, PU has about 15541 student voters with UIET having the most voters, about 2451 students followed by UILS with 1345 and Department of Laws with 1050. But sometimes UIET and Law Dept. get 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 the 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 a 56% turnout with 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.
Regarding Foreign students, as sometimes these students face problems.
Implementation of reservation in Panjab University Senate and Syndicate
Council Presidents
Since 1977, the Council was usually represented by students leaders of campus-based parties like SOPU and PUSU. But in 2013, first time Congress-affiliated NSUI won the Council President's post. In 2015, as another surprise, first-time PUCSC president from Shiromani Akali Dal 's student wingSOI was elected. In 2016, Amritpal Singh, first SC presidential candidate in PU from Students For Society gave an impressive performance with 2494 votes the first time in campus student politics due to its successful rallies. In 2018 Kanupriya was elected as president of PUCSC, of Panjab University, from SFS. Through SGGS College
Presidents of PUCSC
Notable Student Organisations
In 1974, Ajaib Singh founded Progressive Students’ Union as in 1977 first elected president was Bhupinderpal Singh Khosa. PUSU was formed in 1977 and SOPU in 1985 while NSUI first contested at PU Campus in 1997 and ABVP won an office-bearer post in 2000. Different Organisations take part in Activities and compaigning.
