With elections to an office that he had called his own for a year fast approaching, Ahan Bansal recounted the thrills and travails of his tenure as President. He reminisced about the period leading up to his decision to contest for the presidency. His political journey, he said, started as a campaigner, but stalled soon after as he tried his hand at student committees. He described an eventual return as a member of the Executive Committee in his fourth semester to resume his presidential trajectory.

Ahan said that his campaigns concentrated on the unfulfilled core necessities of student life and systematic issues concerning a section of students christened ‘Gurgaon CS’, aside from the remaining clauses of an exhaustive manifesto. A typical day of a President did not exist as he explained that every day was rooted in unpredictability, and that there were no weekends in his office. He recollected that there were no celebrations on the night of September 15 last year, the day of his victory, since he was immediately swept away by the responsibilities of his newly acquired title. He acknowledged that he had sought most of his sustenance from coffee sachets since then. The initial days were the most hectic, he said, since there was no one handbook that laid out the machinations of the role. He stressed that a lack of knowledge transfer to the elected council was a serious shortcoming of the system. He said that he had made sure his juniors knew at least the fundamentals of the job, such as filing a pay slip.

Ahan reiterated that there were no off-hours for a President, and even in the earliest of mornings, he had to deal with sudden developments. He recollected spending entire nights before his mid-semester exams in the SU office. Ahan recounted the night before Oasis began when he had been roused from semi-consciousness at SAC and informed by the CRC representatives that the monetary buffer had been exhausted. Chaos had followed him well until the end of his tenure, with his summers spent in dealing with committees, the administration over fee increments and attendance policies, and other ‘political drama.’

All councils have limitations, and Ahan attributed those of his council to the personal biases that compromised rational choices. At the same time, he expressed pride over his council’s work ethic. He stated that work for a candidate generally began much before the elections. Ahan explained that one of the metricss to evaluate a candidate was to review the status of their hostel, since a student did not need a representative’s tag to work for their peers’ welfare. He also wanted to ensure voter education to afford informed choices during elections. He said that the ‘tag’ of an elected representative had no power; the real power of the Union Council was the student body, and it was the UC’s job to guarantee on-ground implementation of policies in the interest of the students.

Ahan’s proudest accomplishment as President was the SU Connect, the Union’s WhatsApp channel, which brought the UC closer to the people, so that it was no longer just an entity of the email. SU Connect empowered students to engage with the UC’s operations. He also noted the improved quality of life, exemplified through air conditioning of the library halls, relaxed restrictions on WiFi, and improved timings of most campus services. He also assured the establishment of the promised Domino’s outlet, with special campus discounts on all items. He explained that a President’s term sets trends for the next and that his tenure did away with the big selling points of online ‘academic drives’. This was accomplished through pooling all resources in the servers of StudyDeck. Ahan said that he directed substantial efforts into inviting brand collaborations for his electorate. At the close of his tenure, he experienced an emotion that he said remained elusive for Presidents — satisfaction. The President said that such a sentiment was the result of touching upon all the aspirations he had begun the term with.  

Next, Ahan identified the greatest challenge to his council’s operation as the bureaucracy, specifically, its archaic nature. He described having to sign registers every day at the accounts office, for instance, and waiting nearly a week for them to be returned. He also regretted his innate idealism and felt that he did not act like a ‘politician’ at a few critical moments during his tenure. 

For the future, Ahan only wished that his successors were passionate about the Union and would preserve the delicate dynamic between the elected and selected bodies. He felt that the Union Council had succeeded in projecting the Union as a powerful body, and he thought it imperative that future councils concentrate on repairing the Union from the inside. For Ahan himself, the future meant ‘a lot more hair on his head but a lot less people in the room.’ He emphasised that his door remained open for all in need of his counsel.