Chandigarh: Free food, liquor on university campus to woo voters

Chandigarh: An attempt to serve free alcohol to students has begun at the Punjab University Campus. Since the City Beautiful is famous for its cheap liquor, premium whisky brands are being offered to the hostellers by some groups. Since the stakes are high for some parties this time, the ‘rate’ for a vote has also gone up. To make things easy and feasible for all, the parties have opened ‘accounts’ at shops in the Student Centre as well as Sector 14 market. Students wearing party stickers are asked to reach a particular shop where they have to reveal a ‘code’, usually of four digits, after which they are served free food by the shopkeeper. To prevent ‘over-exploitation’, the parties keep changing the codes after a few hours every day.

An organisation affiliated to a mainstream political party has been treating students at a campus eatery for the past four days and has reportedly spent over Rs 1.5 lakh on this ‘service’. However, there are some parties that have not been able to please voters in this way due to budgetary constraints. “We had opened an account at a shop in the student centre, but the money we had already paid got exhausted in two days. We cannot give more money,” said a student leader from the campus. To ensure proper ‘care’ of the students, many leaders are providing voters with premium brand whisky worth more than Rs 1,000.

However, this is not so easy to achieve. “One has to give a commitment that his vote will go in favour of that party. Then, the representative talks to a leader, who gives him the green signal,” said a resident of the boys’ hostel. Cash is also being used by student leaders to woo voters during campaigning in hostels. “I was offered Rs 3,000 in exchange for a promise to vote in their favour,” said another student from the campus. Despite claims of strict monitoring by university authorities, such incidents are taking place clandestinely and are likely to increase in the coming days.