Thursday, October 8, 2009

All set for re- election




By Mohammed Shareef M P & Deepti Nair

As the re-election is only hours away, the candidates and students organizations supporting them are brushing up on their last minute strategies. Meetings and crowds abound in places like the shop com and gops in which discussion of the impending elections dominate. Around 4000 students are all set to exercise their right to vote tomorrow. But it is a common fear if the political drama that preceded this re-election would lead to a lesser turn out of voters this time. To quell this fear, all student organisations are trying to encourage more people to cast their votes and ensure a more representative Students’ Union.


The candidates got a chance to present their manifestos and agendas at the open dais session held yesterday at the DST auditorium. But surprisingly, the auditorium was quite empty at 3 p.m. when the session was supposed to start. The Returning Officers, who were conducting the session, were waiting for the candidates and students to arrive and take their places. The session eventually started by 4.30 pm but even then, the turn out of students was sadly less. A majority of the students present there were supporters of the candidates and the student organisations.


Returning Officers Dr. Rajashekhar read out the code of conduct for the open dais session while Mr. Vasuki Belavadi oversaw the proceedings. Each candidate was given a specific time period to present their election manifestos. The Candidates standing for the post of President and General Secretary were given five minutes to speak while all others were given three minutes. While the students were allowed to ask two main questions and four supplementary questions to the former, they were allowed to ask one main question and two supplementary questions to the latter. The questions had to be confined to the agendas presented by the candidates in the specified time.


Most candidates talked about providing certain facilities like hike and timely disbursement of the fellowships to the students, providing internet connectivity to all hostels, better quality of food in the mess, immediate development of infrastructure in the South Campus etc. Though the proceeding started smoothly, it turned quite noisy near the end with some students shouting and passing loud comments.


The open dais session was conducted amid tight security and was also captured on video by the authorities. Security will also be ensured for the polling tomorrow and the counting which will happen on Saturday.

5 comments:

  1. hi dispatch guys...

    congrags for putting words in the frame of picture ..a denied photo evokes thousand times better than an arranged politically correct photo which is meaningless to communicate the ground realities ...

    ...
    i remember a similar experience i encounterered while trying to take pictures of ABVP supporters trying to manhandle the then Registrar in 2008 when allegations over the rigging the election led to a pandemonium that continued late into the night in LHC...
    university guards blocked me and later when i asked for a classmate to hand over his camera, the ironic reply was ''the camera belongs to Commmunication dept and cannot b used to cover controversial incidents''
    does gen election in HCU a controversial thing to be kept from the public???
    ...

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  2. Thank you very much for your comment, Jaya. This is not the first time that we are facing such problems while trying to click pictures. We felt that this was one way in which to protest.
    We understand what you must have faced in 2008. It is very sad and ironic that certain students in a democratic campus do not understand the meaning of democracy and freedom of expression. This should never happen.

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  3. @ pic display

    hey Guys. gud Job ... Really Really gud job...

    We the media Ppl too often face such problems at news gathering. Ur's is the best way of condemning such practices. I must appreciate U for following professional media ethics in such situations. Hope our Telugu news channels learn some professionalism from u people.

    Three cheers for Ur creative presentation.

    Mr. R.C
    Creative Head,
    Go Live Gaming Solutions Pvt Ltd.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you so much for your comment. Keep reading our blog. We would like to get your support and advice in future also...

    ReplyDelete
  5. You mean UNDEMOCRATIC ELEMENTS? Check the pic please! Or was it meant to be ironic?

    ReplyDelete