The second day of counting for Panjab University’s (PU) 15-seat registered graduates constituency saw three candidates — Mukesh Kumar Arora, Sandeep Singh Sikri and Ashok Goyal — clear the quota, as six rounds of counting were completed on Thursday. Counting was stopped around 1 pm and will resume at 9 am on Friday, with the remaining seats to be decided through subsequent rounds and transfers.
Arora has so far secured 3,424 votes, followed by Sikri with 3,044 and Goyal with 2,786. Arora and Sikri have cleared the Punjab quota, while Goyal has cleared the UT, Chandigarh quota, according to the counting details. The three are among 51 candidates contesting the 15 seats in the registered graduates constituency.
The counting is being conducted under the preferential voting/single transferable vote system, under which voters mark candidates in order of preference. The first-preference votes are counted initially, following which the prescribed counting procedure involves the transfer of surplus votes of elected candidates and, where required, the transfer of votes of eliminated candidates according to the next available preferences. Therefore, the first-preference tally alone does not determine all 15 elected members.
The constituency polled 60,044 votes on September 20. The ballots were scrutinised and separated into valid and invalid votes on Wednesday before counting began. The counting staff, who have been working continuously for nearly 36 hours, have been given a break before the process resumes on Friday, PU registrar YP Verma said.
The three candidates are also not new to Senate politics. Mukesh Kumar Arora was elected from the graduate constituency in the previous Senate election and was described by HT in 2021 as becoming a senator for the seventh time and from the constituency for the fifth time. Sandeep Singh Sikri was first elected to the Senate in 2016 and was among the candidates elected from the constituency in 2021. Ashok Goyal has also been a long-time figure in senate elections and was elected from the medical sciences faculty in the 2021 polls.
The graduate constituency is part of a phased process to reconstitute the university’s elected Senate after the previous 91-member body’s term expired on October 31, 2024. The process will continue after the graduate constituency counting, with the final phase scheduled for October 4, when six ordinary fellows will be elected from various university faculties. The new senate will be formally constituted only after the elections across all constituencies and the required approval of the chancellor.