The Auditorium Debate for the Students’ Union By-Elections to the post of General Secretary was held on the 15th of August. The debate opened to a sparsely filled auditorium with the few seats that were occupied taken up mainly by the campaigners of the two candidates, Krushabh Mistry and Akash Singh. The “Audi Rag” lacked the excitement that people have come to expect from it and even the campaigners’ cheers seemed unmotivated.

The debate began with Krushabh Mistry being questioned about his role as Cultural Secretary of Ram Bhawan in the previous year. He stated that the responsibility of the cultural secretary is to ‘uphold the culture of the Bhawan’, amongst other duties. Later on in the debate, the panel brought up that the Senate Representative was often a member of one of the elected post holders’ political camps. He responded by saying that he was open to the idea of the President and General Secretary being removed from the panel that selects the Senator. Krushabh Mistry’s point of partnering with Amazon to link purchases with mess bills was also scrutinized as he failed to show any proof in this regard from SWD’s side.

Akash Singh was questioned about his head start as a candidate considering that he had stood for the post of President in the SU elections last semester. It was brought up that he had retained six out of eight manifesto points, introducing only two new points while also having an already formed camp. His response was that he was contesting for the post with the same vision as before. The reason given was there was a very short window to submit the manifesto. The panel nullified this statement by pointing out that Akash had made his intention to contest evident in a Facebook post in July.

One of the new points Akash introduced to his manifesto was starting a conference for student unions of various colleges across the country. When asked about the purpose of this initiative, Akash said, ‘The outside world has a lot to give to BITS and BITS has a lot to give to the world.’ The panel further asked if any colleges showed interest in this initiative considering that no proof was submitted to support this point. Akash responded by saying that he had gotten positive responses from two IITs and three NITs but got them after the deadline for submitting proof had passed. He invited the GBM to his room to check the authenticity of these mails.

The rest of the Debate followed a recurring pattern with the panel discussing the various manifesto points of the candidates. Many of these points were highlighted as unnecessary or redundant, considering there were other bodies that performed these functions. The candidates submitted little to no proof to support many of the claims they had made. A lot of these discussions were inconclusive and ended with the panel saying ‘It is up to the GBM’s discretion to analyse the legitimacy of these claims’.

The Auditorium Debate concluded with the candidates making an appeal to the GBM for votes. The Student Union by-election polling will take place on the 19th of August.