The Auditorium Debate 2018 between the candidates and a panel composed of members of EC and CRC, began as always, with a prolonged period of hoots and cheers. There was little time for the candidates to get comfortable as the panel started the proceedings by asking them their views on alcohol and substance abuse, as well as the implications of the aforementioned on candidate prospects. Unsurprisingly, vague diplomatic answers resulted, setting the tone for much of the remainder of the debate.

Philosophical discussions followed as questions were raised to presidential candidate Satyansh Rai about how he, as an organizer, would respond if the app for a fest made by a group of people proved to be better than the official one made by another group of people who had previously shown to be slightly problematic – going so far as pulling down the official website for unknown reasons. Like all good philosophical discussions, there was no resolution of the problem.

A similar hypothetical was put forward to Presidential candidate Akash Singh – in the event that a cab vendor threatens to report illegal student activities if the SU considers termination of his contract, what would the ideal response be? According to the candidate, “making a deal with the vendor” to get all such evidence would be an amicable solution for both parties.

Back to the real world, the manifestos became the focus of the interrogation. The candidates were shown manifestos of previous contestants who had similar propositions as each of them. They were then asked if they tried to contact the ex-President or ex-General Secretary and learn from their mistakes. Both the presidential candidates denied being aware of the previous manifestos carrying a similar point, and hence denied trying to contact either of the postholders. However, the tirelessly hardworking General Secretary candidate Jayant Singh Rathore claimed he tried to contact the ex-President in order to enquire about his shortcomings in a similar manifesto point. An impressive feat, considering the EC revealed that the manifestos shown were forged.

When parallels were drawn between the ACC and the proposed Peer Mentorship Programme, presidential candidate Akash Singh clarified that he did not consider ACC as approachable. Since the goals of the two are similar, efforts would be made to set up the Peer Mentorship Programme in collaboration with ACC. ‘However, should ACC decide to pull out in the future, the Students’ Union would still carry this move forward for the sake of BITSians’, said Akash Singh.

Doubts were also raised about the feasibility of bringing Ola Autos to Pilani. Jayant had worked out a plan, assuming the population of Pilani to be around 20,000, further assuming that most of the village folk were tech-savvy. The candidate was unable to satisfactorily explain what measures he had planned in the case Ola did not sense a business opportunity in Pilani.

Discussion around the BITS-centric apps formed a considerable part of the debate, owing mostly to the candidates’ refusal to answer or understand direct questions. The idea of Jayant Singh Rathore’s BITSHub seemed redundant, in a world already that already has Facebook and LinkedIn. Satyansh Rai’s app proposed to integrate Nalanda, ARCD, ID, SWD, and other such services into one app but no permission had been taken from any concerned departments. On being asked what penalties he would impose on himself or his team in the event of a data leak, he replied confidently that ‘since the data is read-only, there’s no possibility of a leak’. Despite repeated questioning, Satyansh successfully managed to avoid answering the simple question.

Many of the manifesto points were accused of being exercises in redundancy, with constitutional duties, institutional initiatives, and irrelevant committees being put forward. Jayant Singh Rathore had come up with the idea of a committee to overlook the performance of the SU, aka the CRC with the addition of a few profs. Akash Singh had thought of the novel idea of mid-term review meets, aka a constitutional duty with the addition of a Google form. Satyansh Rai had thrown water tanks in his manifesto, aka a Project Parivartan initiative that had been decided before.

As with all good political debates, the audience took a brief intermission from making noise to cracking a skull open with the boys. Unfortunately, no casualties have been reported as of yet.

The debate came to an end with each candidate receiving a minute to plead for votes. Extensive hooting and cheering by the over-enthusiastic supporters of the candidates led the EC to ban campaigning for the following day.