If peaceful poll was the goal, six-year-old Kolhan University passed admirably on Friday. If high turnout was the test, the varsity scored badly.
Kolhan University, which held its student union polls for the first time, saw its students display maturity by peacefully voting for their chosen nominees at the seven constituent colleges in Jamshedpur.
Campuses - Jamshedpur Women's College, Jamshedpur Cooperative College and Jamshedpur Cooperative Law College (all in Bistupur), Jamshedpur Workers' College (Mango), ABM College (Golmuri), Graduate School College for Women (Sakchi) and Lal Bahadur Shastri Memorial College (Karandih) - were abuzz with excitement.
But, at 4pm, when polling closed for the day, the percentage of votes received at each showed an uneven graph.
If polling at Jamshedpur Cooperative Law College was a ho-hum 54 per cent, the numbers dipped drastically in the rest of the six.
Voting percentages at Lal Bahadur Shastri Memorial College (24.5), Jamshedpur Women's College (21.43), ABM College (14.44), Jamshedpur Cooperative College (11.5), Jamshedpur Workers' College (11.1) and Graduate School College for Women (5.6) proved the varsity had a lot of catching up to do.
Still, those who did turn up to vote were excited.
"I voted in the Assembly elections in 2014 for the first time and now I am again voting for college elections. I can elect those who would have direct impact in our welfare on campus," said Rohan Kumar, a BA Part I student of Jamshedpur Cooperative College.
If varsity polls managed to balance low turnout with high excitement, it also braved minor allegations of foul play.
There were murmurs of students distributing pamphlets outside the premises of Jamshedpur Women's College in the morning. Two women, identified as Neera Singh of Bistupur and Seema Kumari of Baridih were handed to police allegedly for distributing pamphlets in favour of ABVP candidates. But, as police could not find any document on them, they were released from Bistupur thana in the afternoon.
Altogether, 112 candidates were in fray from seven colleges. Voting took place in 49 booths made on the basis of number of students with Jamshedpur Women's College and Jamshedpur Cooperative College having maximum number of booths, 12 each, as both had the highest number of voters, on paper at least.
Nine booths were set up in Graduate School College for Women while Lal Bahadur Shastri Memorial College and Jamshedpur Workers' College had six and five booths respectively. ABM College had four booths and Jamshedpur Cooperative Law College one.
Chief election officer-cum-dean of students welfare of Kolhan University, Padmaja Sen said only students who had brought their college ID cards were allowed to vote.
Counting would take place on Saturday and results announced in the evening.
