Gopal Krishan Chatrath groups dominance ends with he being its only winner It was the Ashok Goyal group all the way at the Senate elections held today for six seats of ordinary fellows from various faculties at Panjab University. The group won five out of six seats in the constituency. The other group,led by Gopal Krishan Chatrath,which has been dominating the elections for the past several years,managed just one seat from the law faculty,from where Chatrath himself was contesting. He has been a senator for the past 44 years and is a lawyer by profession. Of the total 32 votes polled in this category,23 were won by Chatrath. Davesh Moudgil,the other contender and a sitting councillor of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation,received 9 votes. Chatrath said that he is a revolutionary and will always fight for the cause of teachers and students. Ashok Goyal from the combined faculties,Keshav Malhotra from the Languages faculty and Naval Kishore from the Science faculty,have retained their seats from their respective faculties in the previous term. From the combined faculties,Ashok goyal won by a margin of 90 votes against his competition R K Pathak. Of the total 212 votes polled,Goyal received 150 votes while Pathak received 60 votes. The members of Goyal group claimed that this is the largest ever margin between the contenders in the faculty constituency. Goyal,a banker in Chandigarh,has served five terms as a senator. He is contesting from the combined faculties for the third time and was first elected as a senate member from the constituency of registered graduates in 1992. A delighted Goyal said,"Elections today have proved that people will always vote for those who have a reasonable and logical cause". From the faculty of arts,the competition was between Emanuel Nahar and Rajesh Gill. The chairperson of Sociology Department of PU,Gill,who was contesting the election for the first time supported by Ashok Goyal,won with a margin of five votes. She received 41 votes,against 36 received by Nahar,who has been a nominated member of the senate for the past two terms. From the faculty of languages,Keshav Malhotra,who belongs to the Goyal group,won by a margin of 24 votes. He received 61 votes while,Janmit Singh,of the Chatrath group received 37 votes. Malhotra has been a senator for the past 12 years. He was elected once from the constituency of readers and lecturers and has been winning from the languages faculty for the past two terms. From the Science faculty,Naval Kishore,a sitting senator and the Dean College Development Council (DCDC) of the University,won with a margin of 20 votes,receiving 56 out of the total 101 votes polled. His competitor,Rajat Sandhir,won 36 votes,while there were three invalid votes in this category. For the faculty of medical sciences,A S Ahluwalia,the present Dean Students' Welfare,PU,and Krishan Gauba,a faculty from PGIMER,contested against each other. Gauba a nominated sitting senator who belongs to the Goyal group,won 44 votes out of the total 67 polled. He won by a margin of 21 votes,with Ahluwalia receiving 23 votes. This was the first election,after the split in Chatrath's group about two years ago. Ashok Goyal,who was earlier a part of the Chatrath group,formed a different camp,due to differences in opinions between the two.
