It was a ‘war’, albeit of a different kind, as four teams from four colleges battled it out at the HT-Leadership Debate National Final held in the capital on Wednesday.

After half-an-hour of intense debating, Dhrubajyoti Purkait and Subid Chakraborty of St Xavier’s College, Kolkata were declared the winners.

The finals saw the four best teams from the preliminary rounds — St Xavier’s College, Kolkata, St Stephen’s College, New Delhi, St Andrew’s College, Mumbai, and St Joseph’s College, Bangalore — arguing if it was ‘time for young India to lead the change’.

The final round was preceded by regional rounds in Kolkata, Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi as part of the run up to the October 30-31 Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.

From the word go, as the teams put forth their views for and against the motion, it was clear that the judges — Hindustan Times Advisory Editorial Director Vir Sanghvi and CNN-IBN Editor-in Chief Rajdeep Sardesai — had a tough job at hand.

“The best and the brightest teams are here,” Sardesai said.

After about half an hour of witty interjections and rebuttals at the IBN-7 studio, Dhrubajyoti Purkait and Subid Chakraborty of St Xavier’s College, Kolkata, walked away with the first prize. Their team was speaking for the motion.

The team of Rajiv Naresh and Shaman Marya from St Stephen’s College, who spoke against the motion, took the runners up trophy.

Members of the winning team were handed a cheque of Rs 1 lakh, a trophy and laptops. The second best team won a cheque of Rs 50,000 and a trophy.

“We are elated at winning the trophy. We were confident of doing well,” said Dhrubajyoti Purkait of St Xavier’s College.

“The topic was very well thought off and timely. Interacting with the participants and the judges has given us a good exposure.”

The HT Leadership Debate was organised in partnership with CNN-IBN. You can tune in to CNN-IBN at 6.30 pm Thursday to watch the finals of the debate.