Chandigarh, Aug. 27 -- The Association of Students for Alternative Politics (ASAP), a student wing of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), has announced Mankirat Singh Mann as their presidential candidate for the Panjab University Campus Students Council (PUCSC) elections scheduled to be held on September 3. The party has also decided to contest for two posts this year and announced Komalpreet, a student of LLM, as their general secretary pick for the PU polls. The announcement came in at the AAP's party office in Sector 39 on Tuesday. Mankirat Singh Mann, a research scholar at University Institute of Engineering and Technology, hails from Malout in Punjab and belongs to an agricultural family. Mann marks a significant shift for the party, which won for the first time after making its debut in the PU elections with Ayush Khatkar, a candidate from Haryana, who was elected PUCSC president in 2022. In 2023, the party chose Divyansh Thakur from Himachal Pradesh as its candidate, and in 2024, they fielded Prince Chaudhary, also from Haryana, who finished in second place. This year, the party is making a major change by fielding a Punjabi candidate for the first time. Mann has remained active in ASAP since the beginning. Former PUCSC president and AAP MP Malvinder Singh Kang also came to the party office for Mann's announcement. The party is waiting for student feedback before they officially launch their manifesto on Thursday. In another first, ASAP will contest for two posts of the PUCSC with Komalpreet, contesting for the post of general secretary. As the announcement was made in the party office with state heads and former heads of the party, Komal could be seen with a sad demeanour as sources said she had vied to be ASAP's first female presidential pick for the elections. However, she claimed that the selection is fine and the post of general secretary is significant as well, and she plans to take up issues related to women through this. While members spoke against cross voting, they claimed that Prince Chaudhary last year was the first candidate in PUCSC elections in recent years to poll over 3,000 votes but still lost the election. As per party insiders, there was another strong candidate Chirag Singh Duhan who was being considered for the seat, but he was ultimately offered the ticket for the vice-president seat which he refused. It remains to be seen whether he will fight the polls on an independent ticket. The two candidates were taken to PU parade ground from where ASAP members conducted a rally to the various girls hostels and later to the boys hostels to introduce their new candidates. Speaking about the picks, Vatanveer Singh Gill, state spokesperson of ASAP said, "Both members have been with the party since the beginning. Komal won the DR election when Khatkar won in 2022 and Mankirat has a strong hold over UIET, which has the most votes. We will aim to bring our brand of alternative politics to PU."...