With the year’s Students’ Union (SU) Elections just around the corner, the English Press Club (EPC) interviewed Rajya Vardhan Rai, a candidate for General Secretary.
Rai, a third-year student, was asked about his motivation to take part in student politics. He said that he had realized the SU had turned into a mere ‘fest-conducting body’, which prompted him to step up and ‘restore campus culture’. According to him, this culture had ‘declined’ after COVID due to a fall in ‘peer-to-peer knowledge transfer’, reduced alumni engagement, and the degradation of what he described as the campus’s earlier ‘skill-based environment ’. This was to ensure that the institute’s Placement and Summer Internship legacy, which he described as declining, did not degrade further over the next decade.
Rai detailed his prior experience in the SU Executive Committee over the past year, where he said he had participated in the organizing body for major campus events, including Dussehra, Holi, Founders’ Day, and Makar Sankranti. He explained that this work was essential in helping him learn about on-ground logistics and execution. Rai also added that he had worked on petitions to remove Wi-Fi restrictions and Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool bans, coordinated shoe-cleaning services, and had directly participated in negotiating with drivers to extend campus auto-rickshaw operational hours until 12:00 AM.
When asked why he decided to run for the post of General Secretary rather than President, Rai explained that the constitutional duties of the General Secretary directly aligned with managing inventory, basic amenities, and club facility allocations, thereby placing him directly in charge of the institutional levers required to execute his platform. Additionally, Rai asserted that he aimed to improve resource distribution across clubs and departments by drafting a ‘differentiating budget criteria’ tailored to each club’s core motive and operational pace, and emphasised that technical, press, and hobby clubs would be funded and evaluated based on their specific workload and projects.
Talking about his platform, Rai stated that it rested on three main pillars: better basic amenities, club facility support, and reviving a ‘skill-based’ ecosystem. He also listed his specific plans as General Secretary, which included installing centralized water-softening plants, introducing hot and cold water coolers across bhawans, expanding gym access for Meera Bhawan residents, removing Wi-Fi restrictions, and collaborating with the Academic Undergraduate Studies Division (AUGSD) to list SOPs directly on the ERP portal. When questioned about the administrative approvals required for policy and infrastructure reforms, Rai clarified that while the SU Constitution does not explicitly grant direct power over administrative policy, the union can effectively leverage administrative advocacy to negotiate changes for student welfare.
Highlighting his flagship policy regarding an inventory-lending mechanism, Rai claimed to have devised a structured plan to lend unutilized SU stock to independent student groups using their student identity cards at minimal ‘raw-material cost’. He explained that clubs and departments holding inventory would provide a tentative semester timeline showing when their equipment remains unused, allowing non-club groups pursuing technical projects — such as building a go-kart — to access these idle resources.
Addressing potential administrative pushback and public scrutiny, Rai remarked that ‘negative PR is also PR’, asserting that facing public questions provides a constructive opportunity to clarify motives and prove critics wrong through tangible results.
Rai remarked that the ideal President, General Secretary, and Students’ Union should ‘work together’ to pursue student welfare. On a parting note, Rai urged the GBM to vote wisely and evaluate candidates based on concrete pre-planned proposals, tentative timelines, and execution legwork rather than empty campaign statements.