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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.
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Student Representation
Panjab University, Chandigarh 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 in Affiliated Colleges
Elections are also held in Colleges only in Chandigarh that are affiliated to Panjab University, Chandigarh and these are:
Student Issues
There are many issues that is a responsibility of Council to solve.
Council Presidents
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 dalit presidential candidate in PU from lefist Students For Society (SFS) gave impressive performance with 2494 votes first time in Campus student Politics due to its successful rallies.
Notable Student Organisations
In 1974, Ajaib Singh founded Progressive Students’ Union (PSU) as in 1977 first elected president was Bhupinder Khosla. 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.