Chandigarh, Sept. 2 -- Rains played spoilsport on the last day of campaigning for the Panjab University Campus Students Council (PUCSC) elections, slated for September 3, even as candidates made last-ditch efforts well into the night on Monday, carrying out footmarches and approaching students in hostels. By and large, campaigning remained a muted affair, reflecting the overall trend on campus this year. Students leaders alleged that they did not get enough time to canvas as there were multiple holidays in between. As per the voter list released by PU on Monday, three departments - University Institute of Engineering and Technology, University Institute of Legal Studies and Department of Laws - hold the key to the student elections as these have 34.42% of the voters on campus. UIET has the most number of voters at 2,535 followed by UILS at 1,921 votes and Department of Laws at 1,094. The total voters this year at 16,142 is higher than last year's figure of 15,854. Five of this year's eight presidential candidates are from these three departments. Mankirat Singh Mann of Association of Students for Alternative Politics (ASAP) is a research scholar form UIET while Seerat Kaundal of Students Organisation of India (SOI) is also pursuing a BTech degree from here. Gauarv Veer Sohal of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), Parabhjot Singh Gill of National Students Union of India (NSUI) and Navneet Kaur of Ambedkar Students Forum (ASF) are from the law departments, making this year's fight even more important for these three departments. Scoring big in law was what worked in favour of 2023 PUCSC president Jatinder Singh as he was able to secure a commanding lead over Divyansh Thakur in these two departments. However, the big three departments aren't always a game changer as seen last year. Last year, Prince Chaudhary of Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS) had won in all three, although with small margins, while winner Anurag Dalal had trounced Chaudhary in the smaller departments, especially in the Sciences block. Former ABVP president for PU, Rajat Puri explained that having multiple candidates from these big departments this year is likely to divide the votes of these big three departments. Further, candidates for other posts, including Ashmeet Singh of Sath who is also from UILS, are also using their law-connect to appeal to the voters which is likely to divide the vote. On paper, this will put candidates like Sumit Sharma of MA Geography at a disadvantage. However, with strategic alliances, Sumit has also been able to tie up with candidates including Abhishek Dagar from UILS for general secretary and Sidharth Boora from UIET for joint secretary to bolster his numbers in these departments. The Dean Students Welfare (DSW) office has also collected gender-wise data for voters list this time. The data has been collected for 13,084 students of which, 6,939 are women and 6,123 are men. There are two transgender voters this year. Divyansh Thakur, a student leader active in PU, said that this year, the campaign has been different. "Rather than showing exuberant displays of strength, the campaigns this year were on social media or face-to-face," he said. A student leader from PU, Arsh Thakur confirmed this and added that student activism has been declining over the past few years. As some parties had set up QR codes to ask students for their inputs, sources revealed that very few students had actually bothered to respond. Dean students welfare Amit Chauhan said that this had to do with the extra security on the campus. "We cut down on outsider entry and enhanced checking." Around 10 show-cause notices have also been issued by the DSW to various student parties. After the candidates submit they reply, PU will decide on fines....