One winner wants to ensure “quality education”; another wants to fight against “favouritism and corruption”; and, the third wants “digital libraries” to be established in “every department”. Their goals may be different but together, they have already delivered a powerful message. It's for the first time that three women have won top posts in elections held for the Patna University Students' Union (PUSU). In the results declared Saturday, ABVP's Maithily Mrinalini was elected as PUSU president, independent candidate Saloni Raj as general secretary and NSUI's Soumya Srivastava as treasurer. The other top posts went to independent candidate Dhiraj Kumar (vice-president) and NSUI's Rohan Kumar (joint secretary). In another Patna landmark, Maithily's win marks the first time that PUSU has a woman president. “It is really a great honour. Also, history has been made with women winning three top positions for the first time,” she said. Maithily listed “five Ps” as her top priorities at the helm. “Pravesh (entrance test), Pariksha (examination), Pathyakram (syllabus), Parisar (campus) and Parinam (result)” to “ensure quality education”, she said. The ABVP candidate hails from Munger and is a third-year BA (political science) student at Patna Women's College. She completed Class 10 from the well-known Notre Dame Academy in Patna and Class 12 from Banasthali Vidyapeeth in Rajasthan. During her campaign, Maithily demanded “functioning sanitary napkin vending machines” to be set up on campus. Her other promises include “ensuring enough hostels for students and placement in coordination with the administration”. She ended up defeating NSUI's Manoranjan Raja by 603 votes. Saloni Raj's win also marks the first time in PUSU history that an independent woman candidate has been elected to the general secretary's post. “I wanted to contest and win as an independent because I want to work freely without the burden of ideology,” she said. Hailing from Vikramganj in Rohtas, Saloni completed Class 10 from Gyan Niketan Girls School and Class 12 from St Karen's High School, both in Patna. Currently, she is a third-year Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) student at Patna Women's College. “My priorities include fighting against favouritism and corruption in university administration,” Saloni said after defeating ABVP's Ankit Kumar by 2,372 votes. Soumya Srivastava, the new treasurer, is a Patna resident who completed her schooling from St Joseph's Convent in Bankipore (Class 10) and Carmel High School on Bailey Road (Class 12), and graduated from Patna Women's College. This NSUI candidate, who is now a postgraduate student of geography in Patna University, defeated ABVP's Omjai Yadav in the polls. Topping her list of demands from the administration is “a digital library in every department”. The PUSU elections hold significance in Bihar's politics as a key platform for preparing its student leadership, with several previous winners going on to become popular leaders. For instance, former chief minister Lalu Prasad, former deputy chief minister (the late) Sushil Kumar Modi and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had won the posts of president, general secretary and joint secretary, respectively, in the PUSU polls of 1973. The elections, however, were not held for nearly 40 years thereafter before finally resuming in 2012. Since then, five such elections have been held with only one woman - Sandhya Kumar of Chhatra JD(U) as joint secretary in 2022 - getting elected to a top post till this year. Even the elections held Saturday were to be conducted last year in a July-July cycle, which means the tenure of the new panel will technically end in August. Yet, the latest edition had its share of political pointers: * ABVP won the prestigious president's position for the first time after 2012. * Independents sprang a surprise by winning the two top positions of vice president and general secretary. * Chhatra JD (U), which had swept the last PUSU polls in 2022, stayed away this time. According to party leaders, they decided to support ABVP, given the limited tenure of office-bearers this time. * Apart from Left outfits, poll strategist Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj Party also participated in these polls. Kishor's group supported the NSUI candidate for president but ended up on the losing side.
