Saptarshi (top), Hiya. Pictures by Pradip Sanyal

Calcutta, March 13: The fathers have mastered the art of winning election after election but don’t seem to have passed on the trick to their offspring.

Despite the presence of star campaigners Saptarshi, the son of Bengal housing minister Goutam Deb, and Hiya, the daughter of tourism minister Manab Mukherjee, the SFI failed for the fifth time in a row in the Presidency College union elections.

After finishing at 35 — two short of the combined count of allies Independents’ Consolidation (IC) and Democratic Students’ Organisation (DSO) — SFI was routed in the students’ union panel election.

On Thursday, the 72 class representatives (CR) elected 10 office-bearers of the students’ union — none of them went to SFI.

“We had more class representatives… The results are along expected lines,” said Prithwish Burman, an IC supporter, after the 11-hour-long election process.

SFI supporters claimed a “moral victory” despite failing to bag a single CR post. “We got more seats than IC, which ended with a tally of 34,” claimed an SFI activist.

“We were expecting the results by 11pm, but it got delayed as there were a huge number of nominations for the 10 posts,” Sanjib Ghosh, the principal of the college, told Metro late on Thursday.

The election process started at 1.30pm and through the day, the campus erupted several times as IC and DSO supporters clashed with SFI supporters.

The first clash of the day broke out around 1pm as the CRs queued up to enter the election room in the main building of the 153-year-old seat of learning on College Street.

“SFI cadres beat up four of our supporters… Some outsiders were also spotted,” alleged an IC supporter. Amid rumours that Hiya had been harassed, SFI supporters went on the offensive.

“The elections went off peacefully,” claimed Vineet Goyal, the deputy commissioner of police (headquarters).