Student politics has lost its charm: Ex-presidents

Though the two major parties of Panjab University are arch rivals when it comes to the student elections, their senior leaders do agree upon the diminishing quality of leadership amongst students.

The Panjab University student council presidents of previous years feel that PU leaders nowadays do not have ideological inclinations and contest elections on baseless grounds. In the past 15 years, since elections were restarted in the university, the elections have been won seven times by SOPU and eight times by PUSU.

DPS Randhawa, the founder member of SOPU, says that in the university, student politics has lost its charm and hardly produces good leaders any more. "The students now fight about hostels and admissions. Nobody talks about real issues and ideologies. Students are not concerned about what is going on outside the campus walls," he says.

A senior leader of PUSU says that it is not just the fault of the leaders that student politics today has stooped so low. "The voters also nowadays do not want charismatic leaders. They just want leaders who can pressure the authorities into building more hostels and beautifying the campus," he says.

The senior leaders of both parties also agree that the Lyngdoh guidelines have led to the dumbing down of leadership in universities.

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