In Indore, ABVP protesters broke through police barricades outside the District Collector’s office over basic facilities in government colleges. In Katni, water cannons were used against an NSUI march demanding a government medical college.Across Madhya Pradesh, motorcycle rallies, student meetings and membership drives are gathering pace as political organisations prepare for student union elections — the first in the state since 2017. After an eight-year gap, the ABVP (the RSS-affiliated students wing), NSUI (the Congress affiliated body) and smaller outfits are mobilising a generation of students with little or no experience of campus politics.AdvertisementThe elections return at a time when student politics has acquired fresh visibility nationally. The Cockroach Janta Party(CJP)-led agitation over irregularities in examinations and NEET paper leak grew from an online campaign into weeks of street protests in Delhi, culminating in Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation as Union Education Minister on July 25. The protests brought examination integrity, jobs, institutional accountability and the quality of education back into the centre of youth politics.Madhya Pradesh will now test whether that wider ferment translates into campus politics in a state where students have not had elected representatives for years.A troubled historyStudent elections in Madhya Pradesh have long been marked by concerns over campus violence and political interference.AdvertisementDirect elections were discontinued in 2003 after repeated clashes between student groups. An indirect system continued, with students electing class representatives who then chose union office-bearers.Must Read | ‘Papa, save me’: Pregnant woman, her newborn die in MP hospital, probe underwayThe debate over violence and political influence intensified after the August 2006 killing of H S Sabharwal, head of the political science department at Madhav College in Ujjain. Sabharwal was attacked during a dispute over the postponement of student union elections and died the following day.The episode became a turning point in discussions around campus violence and political interference. The Supreme Court’s subsequent adoption of the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations brought further restrictions on student elections.Elections resumed intermittently, first in 2010 and again in 2011-12, before another prolonged gap.The process was revived in 2017 under a largely indirect system. The ABVP emerged as the dominant force, winning the principal posts at five of the state’s six universities, while the NSUI won at Rani Durgavati University in Jabalpur.But the 2017 exercise did not restore a regular electoral cycle. No student union elections were held again after that year.The latest revival followed a PIL filed by student leader Adnan Ansari, who challenged the prolonged absence of elections and pointed out that students continued to be charged a student union fee despite there being no elected body.On August 3, a division Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court took note of the state’s 2026-27 academic calendar, which provides for student union elections in September, and directed colleges and universities across the state to conduct them, with police assistance where required by college authorities.Also Read | Madhya Pradesh school education department tops list of offices flagged in Rs 648-crore payment probeABVP banks on permanent presenceThe Gen Z protests that shook the BJP are being watched closely by the ABVP as the organisation is keen to draw a distinction between the Delhi agitation and its own politics in the state.Its leaders say ABVP had been raising examination irregularities independently, including through protests and demands for stronger action, before the latest wave of demonstrations.That distinction is now part of ABVP’s pitch in Madhya Pradesh, where it is seeking to convert its longstanding campus presence into an electoral advantage.Its assessment is that the political mood that developed in Delhi cannot simply be transplanted to Madhya Pradesh. Student concerns here, its leaders argue, are more likely to be shaped by local academic and campus problems — areas where ABVP believes its existing network gives it an advantage.“We work round-the-clock in campuses,” state secretary Ketan Chaturvedi said, describing the organisation’s approach as a combination of agitation around student grievances and year-round programmes.He cited annual fests, webinars and start-up initiatives alongside campaigns on examinations and other education-related issues as examples of its continuing campus activity. The strategy is straightforward: use that continuous presence to build an electoral network.The ABVP has not had to wait for the election announcement to start organising. Its workers have continued raising local grievances and conducting activities through the years without elected student bodies. Chaturvedi said the organisation can now draw on those existing relationships rather than having to build a campus network from scratch.ABVP leaders speaking to The Indian Express identified a range of deficiencies in government colleges that are likely to form a central part of the campaign: inadequate classrooms and furniture, poor washrooms, unreliable drinking water facilities, non-functional Wi-Fi and CCTV systems, damaged or missing boundary walls, inadequate security and parking, poorly stocked libraries, and shortages of equipment in laboratories and canteens.The organisation has begun turning this assessment into a statewide campaign.Its “Vidyarthi Hunkar Abhiyan” takes these complaints beyond individual campuses to district headquarters, where activists have staged demonstrations and submitted memorandums to collectors addressed to the state Higher Education Minister.The campaign has already produced confrontational scenes. On August 27 in Indore, ABVP protesters gathered outside the Collector’s office over the condition of government colleges, broke through barricades and attempted to enter the premises before security personnel stopped them.The organisation is also using its membership drive to convert its campus presence into a more formal electoral network.Ritesh Patel, an ABVP national executive member overseeing its work in Dhar, said the organisation was combining membership outreach with campaigns around basic student concerns, including clean campuses, functional toilets, drinking water, sanitation and what it describes as rational, rule-based student charges.Patel said the response to the membership drive had “been positive, with students showing enthusiasm about the return of elections after the long gap.”NSUI tries to rebuildFor the NSUI, the return of student union elections is first an organisational challenge.After years without polls, many students now on campuses have never voted in a student election or had an elected representative to take up their grievances. The organisation has therefore begun rebuilding its campus network well before voting begins.State president Ashutosh Chouksey has travelled across districts including Gwalior, Bhind, Morena, Ujjain, Indore, Shajapur, Dewas, Rewa, Satna and Maihar for meetings with students and local office-bearers, as well as marches and motorcycle rallies.The NSUI is also identifying potential campus leaders and assessing them against the two possible electoral structures — whether candidates would need to appeal to individual classes or an entire college.Chouksey said the organisation had so far identified around 10 to 12 potential candidates in each college.At the same time, it is trying to draw students who have traditionally stayed away from politics into the campaign by presenting student representation as a practical mechanism for raising everyday problems with college administrations, rather than simply as a contest between political organisations.“Students today do not even know what a student union election is,” Chouksey said, adding that the organisation’s campus outreach involved explaining how student elections work and what an elected representative can do.NSUI state vice-president Ravi Parmar said the outreach was also directed at students who may be willing to vote but have little interest in politics otherwise. He estimated that on some campuses, 30 to 40% of students could fall into that category.“Even if you are not interested in politics, if you face a problem on campus tomorrow, an elected representative can raise that issue and fight with the management or university,” he said.Parmar said the organisation was assessing students not only for their standing among peers but also for their suitability under different electoral structures.The process has begun before the formal candidate-selection stage because the rules governing the elections have not yet been finalised. The NSUI is therefore looking for students who already have some acceptance among their peers and can be developed into electoral faces once the government clarifies the structure and eligibility criteria.Local grievancesParmar said the organisation was deliberately focusing on local problems rather than relying only on broader political questions, arguing that these were the issues through which it could establish a direct connection with students.Its recent campaigns have included protests over bus fares in Bhairunda and Sironj, a fee increase at a law college in Mandsaur, and examination results and teacher shortages at GDC College in Dewas.In Gwalior, the NSUI said a phased protest at Birla Nursing College was followed by the administration accepting students’ demands.“There are many small problems on campuses which may seem minor individually, but students have to struggle even for these,” Parmar said. “We are going to students, understanding their problems and taking them up through the organisation.”As Chouksey’s team has moved through campuses across the state, it has found a recurring set of academic and administrative gaps.These issues, he said, would form the basis of NSUI’s broader campaign to strengthen government colleges and universities, improve infrastructure and make academic processes more reliable.“The education system needs to be improved,” Chouksey said, adding the NSUI would oppose what it sees as the growing shift towards private institutions and argue for greater investment in the state’s government higher education system.At Barkatullah University in Bhopal, that approach is being translated into a campus-specific agenda.NSUI Bhopal district president Akshay Tomar, who is overseeing the university campaign, said the organisation was preparing a manifesto around problems specific to the campus rather than relying solely on statewide demands.Among its concerns are overcrowding and basic facilities in hostels, including food and other amenities, as well as the difficulties faced by students from districts outside Bhopal who have to make repeated trips to the university to obtain their degrees.The NSUI is seeking to digitise the degree application and issuance process and make it time-bound, Tomar said, so students can complete the process without repeated visits.The campaign is also expected to focus on faculty shortages, including in pharmacy, courses operating with very low student-teacher ratios, and the quality of job fairs and placement opportunities.The NSUI has consistently pushed for a direct election system rather than waiting for the government to settle on an electoral framework.Chouksey said the state government had yet to issue the notification required to begin the process.“The government should have issued the notification soon, but we feel the government’s intention is not to hold the elections,” he said.Parmar said the NSUI was seeking 33% reservation for women in student union positions. If the government does not provide for such a provision, he said, the NSUI plans to implement it.Smaller outfits look for spaceSmaller organisations are also entering the contest.The Karni Sena Parivar is seeking to use its campus-level activity over the past year to establish itself as an alternative.The organisation plans to contest in five to six government colleges in Bhopal, although it has not yet finalised the campuses.State vice-president Chetan Singh Chandel said its campaign will centre on basic facilities such as drinking water, food and canteens, as well as fees, transport charges and alleged discrepancies in fees charged to students receiving scholarships.Chandel said the organisation had “taken up student grievances in nearly 70 colleges over the past year” and claimed to have helped resolve about 95% of the issues it pursued.The organisation is also seeking to distinguish itself from larger student groups by campaigning against intimidation and violence on campuses.Chandel said its outreach would not be confined to any particular caste or religious group and that students across communities would be encouraged to participate in its campaign.