Money on the table: PU elections and the Great Lyngdoh Farce

Time of India

21 hours ago

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Chandigarh: At Panjab University, the Lyngdoh Committee says a student council candidate cannot spend more than Rs 5,000. In reality, that figure barely covers the first few hours of campaigning.
Just the stickers- 10,000 photocopied to look "handmade"- cost around Rs 3,000. Add the daily fuel bill of a single SUV ferrying supporters across Chandigarh, and the budget is already blown. And this is before food, liquor, parties, and manifestoes even enter the scene. Insiders say a small seat gulps down Rs 4-7 lakh, while a front backed by a mainstream political party splurges 15-20 lakh.
Chest stickers are the most visible evidence of the joke. They are supposed to be hand-painted but actually roll out of photocopy shops by the thousands.
"Ten thousand pieces cost barely Rs 3,000. They look handmade, just enough to trick the rulebook," said a shopkeeper in Sector 17, who is visited by student leaders for printing since years. The stickers are flung in the air at rallies, pasted and repasted on chests through the day, each campaigner using two or three before nightfall.
The larger the order, the cheaper it gets.
The guidelines are unambiguous. Clause 6.6.1 fixes the maximum expenditure per candidate at Rs 5,000.
Clause 6.7.5 forbids printed posters, and Clause 6.7.6 allows handmade ones only at designated spots. But the ground reality is a different spectacle- stickers flooding cars and jackets, glossy manifestoes circulated in stacks, SUVs shuttling students in and out, and endless meals at cafés across Sector 8, 9 and 10.
Food alone eats up a fortune. "Friends, supporters, even people pulled in for a show of strength sit in cafés day in and day out.
That alone burns through lakhs," said a source from a non-political front.
For the bigger players, the outfits openly backed by mainstream political parties, the figures climb even higher. Campaigns worth Rs 15-20 lakh are spoken of casually. The spending list is long: out-of-campus parties, fuel for convoys, manifestoes, daily lunches, and even, according to one insider, "something as shameless as buying votes from smaller groups.
A department unit of 100-150 votes will directly say, 'We can assure this number, but we want something in return.
'"
Alcohol has become another currency. "At least 500 bottles of alcohol, mostly whiskey, go into a good campaign," recalled a former PUCSC elected member. "Earlier it used to be less, but with more direct involvement of political parties, the scale and quality have gone up. Now, with parties in power, liquor comes straight from dealers."
The funding web stretches beyond campus. "The money doesn't always come in cash form. Something may be sponsored by a builder, something by a liquor exporter. They do it to please the mainstream parties, who tell them to get things done," he said.
Even something as basic as water can blow up a bill. In the 2016 campaign, around Rs 1.5 lakh was reportedly spent on water bottle packets in just 15 days, as confirmed by someone who managed the finances back then.
Multiply that by food, stickers, printing, and fuel, and the arithmetic makes a mockery of Lyngdoh's Rs 5,000 ceiling.
Present-day leaders quietly admit the scale. One from a party linked to a national political outfit said, "At least 50 people are around you during campaigning, working with their vehicles and their time for a month. If a student lives on a pocket money of Rs 20,000 per month, imagine how much would be needed to sustain 50 of them for weeks.
It is impossible to keep it within Rs 5,000."
So every season, the cycle repeats itself. Stickers fly, manifestoes roll out, cafés and liquor shops do brisk business, and the university turns into a carnival of money and influence. Lyngdoh's name still gets printed on official notifications, but on the ground it survives only as a prop in a drama run on cash, fuel, and crates of liquor.
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