Ahead of voting, parties woo students through social networking sites

With no campaigning allowed on the campus, students took to social networking sites and SMSes for campaigning. Personal interactions and campaigning in small groups in the hostel still continued.

The students were seen posting campaigning details on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. The election codes of the parties were also sent to the students via text messages. "Students need to know which one is our candidate, which is why the code has been sent to all our supporters. It mentions on which place amongst the five names is our candidate," said a party member.

Both SOPU and PUSU have nearly 10 Facebook pages and about two communities, which are regularly updated. On these websites, besides campaigning for their own candidates, students also engage in ridiculing the members of opposite parties. The ABVP also has about three communities on Facebook, which are visited by students from various universities and one which is for PU students.

Other than slogans of their respective parties, the party members were busy sending SMSes to their voters regarding their poll codes. Fancy party stickers were also being circulated by the party members. Interestingly, some of the party members were seen distributing liquor bottles to their party members and voters. On the other hand, some of them took the students to cinema halls.

Also, to ensure support, the party workers promised free junkets to hill stations including religious places like Vaishno Devi. It was not only the voters, who the contestants were trying to woo but also they visited temples/gurdwaras to seek blessings of the Almighty.

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