The English Press Club interviewed Shirsh Jain, one of the three Presidential candidates for the upcoming Students’ Union (SU) elections. He is a third-year student pursuing a double major in Chemistry and Manufacturing Engineering. He began by mentioning that he had cracked the Google Summer of Code and was a summer intern at the Indian Space Research Organisation.

Talking about his journey in campus politics, Shirsh shared that he was first inspired to contest the Mess Representative elections when he found out the only other nominee was a fourth-year student. He felt that someone else would be better suited as the aforementioned student ‘would not be on campus due to PS-II’. He also cited his friend’s hospitalisation due to a ‘medication overdose’ and the inadequate ambulance service as a prompt for him to improve basic facilities on campus.

Shirsh joined the SU Executive Committee in his second year, where he took initiatives for problems he ‘personally felt he was facing’. These included the installation of vending machines, arrangement of ‘easy accommodations’ for students on their first Practice School, arrangement of end-of-semester delivery service, and restoration of sanitary napkin incinerators at Meera Bhawan. He touched upon his manifesto, which features the likes of a cycle revamping program and the provision of LinkedIn Premium to all students appearing for summer internships or placements, citing that a lot of his points have already been implemented at BITS Hyderabad.

He stated that he wanted to apply for the role of president, as they are the ‘face of the institute’, and his achievements and inclination towards technology made him best-suited to represent an engineering college like BITS Pilani. Talking about the previous SU office holders, he expressed that there were a lot of initiatives that they had tried to implement but could not due to ‘hindrance from the administration’, which the GBM does not know about. He added that if elected, he would be ‘on ground’ and partake in all student functions to bridge such communication gaps.

On a concluding note, he warned of an ‘alarming situation’ citing SU finances and urged the GBM to carefully analyse each candidate’s manifestos before casting their vote and choose someone who would raise their voice for what they believe in.