Before PUSU, there was PSU

Nagender Singh, a leader from the Congress, was elected vice-president in 1974 and Jagmohan Kang, then an Akali supporter, was elected vice-president in 1975. This was followed by the Emergency when no elections were held.

The first political party  to dominate was the Progressive Students’ Union (PSU), founded by Ajaib Singh. Other political parties, including Democratic Students’ Federation (DSF), Students’ Federation of India (SFI) and Akhil Bharatiya Vidya Parishad (ABVP), were just bit players.

Then the demand for direct elections was met, and Bhupinder Khosla was elected president in 1977, followed by the victory of PSU leaders.

In 1977, the Panjab University Students’ Union (PUSU) was formed. It gave a tough fight to PSU in 1982, making a clean sweep. While this signalled the arrival of PUSU, it also sounded the death knell for PSU.

The post-Emergency period was marked by the murder of Makhan Singh, one of the emerging PUSU leaders, who was shot dead near the university. He was the president of the students’ council at Kurukshetra University, and later shifted to PU. This was also the period when NSUI began to take shape on the campus by absorbing leaders from PSU. But it  cut no ice with the students.

On May 20, 1983, the university was shut down and no elections were organised for the next few years. Post-Emergency, PUSU continued to dominate the student politics after elections were revived in 1988 till 1996. Kuljeet Singh Nagra, who was the president of the Students’ Council from 1993-95, became the face of the party.

“There were no other significant parties at that time. PUSU members continued to address issues of students and non-teaching employees, and remained active,” says Jaskaran Singh Brar, one of the founding members of PUSU. “There were around 4,000 students in the university, compared to over 13,000 today. When we sat on dharna, at least 100 students were always there to support us. Today, 10 students sit on protest for an hour and then leave.”

However, PUSU’s dominance was challenged by the Students’ Organisation of Panjab University (SOPU), founded by Dyal Pratap Singh Randhawa, now a PU Senate member, in 1997. SOPU lost their first election, but won with a big margin a year later, and Randhawa was elected as president of the students’ council for two consecutive terms. “We knew we were fighting against an established party, but we were determined to restore democracy on the campus,” said Randhawa.

The following decade was marked by the rivalry between SOPU and PUSU. After two consecutive victories, SOPU began to lose elections to PUSU, which regained dominance till 2006, only to be defeated by SOPU in the next seven elections.

In 2006, PU adopted the Lyngdoh guidelines. It changed the rules of the game. The leaders who had contested the elections earlier could not contest election for a second time, and eligibility of the candidates was laid out, due to which main leaders could not contest elections.

All the other parties — Haryana Students’ Association, Indian National Students’ Organisation, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and Students’ Federation of India — remained marginal players.

In January 2013, in what was a power shift the top brass of SOPU joined NSUI, and NSUI stunned everyone by bagging the president’s post for the first time.

Explains Dalbir Singh Goldy, one of NSUI’s senior leaders who was earlier with SOPU, “In PU politics, students vote for strong teams, and not individual leaders. And NSUI’s strength was in the strong team that it has.” Whom the students will vote for this time, however, remains to be seen.