A student walks along a footpath past a wall covered with posters of candidates contesting the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) elections. (PTI)Stalled for years in many universities across India, student union elections seem to be making a comeback.While Karnataka has given the green signal to the student body polls, in Madhya Pradesh the High Court gave orders earlier this year that the student union elections be held in the state.In Maharashtra, the Higher and Technical Education Department constituted a 12-member committee headed by former Mumbai University Vice-Chancellor Prof Suhas Pednekar to work out a framework for the student union polls, giving the panel a month to submit its report.“In Odisha too, the state government is in talks with stakeholders to resume student union polls. In UP, the ABVP (the RSS’ student wing) has met people at the top levels demanding that elections in universities be resumed,” ABVP national media co-convenor Abhinav Mishra told The Indian Express.Current scenarioThere have been no student body elections in Jamia Millia Islamia since 2006. In the Banaras Hindu University (BHU), there have been no student body elections since 1996, and 2018 in Aligarh Muslim University (AMU).Since 2018, Allahabad University has also not had the student union elections, while the central University of Himachal Pradesh has not seen such polls since 2019. The University of Ladakh has also not had the student union elections since 2024.Also Read | From a Rs 150 grant to a high-stakes political battleground: A brief history of DUSU electionsAmong the central universities, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi University (DU), Assam University, University of Hyderabad (UoH), University of Kerala and the Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University still hold regular elections to their student unions.Story continues below this adAmong the state universities, Panjab University, Chandigarh, has regular student union elections. Jadavpur University in Kolkata has not seen student union elections since 2020. While Patna University has regular elections, all other Bihar universities have seen elections being stalled in 2018.Read | Why Maharashtra is reviving student elections after 33 yearsIn UP, there has been a ban on the student union elections in the state universities since 2018 due to frequent violence. Polls in Chaudhary Charan Singh University, Meerut, were halted in 2017 itself, and those in Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gorakhpur University and University of Lucknow in 2016 and 2012, respectively.In most Gujarat state universities, the student body polls were discontinued in 2023.Student unrestOn many campuses, episodic violence related to student politics led to a sentiment against elections, and many believe that some universities of repute declined student polls because of this factor. The result: elections stopped happening across many states. However, as the recent violence in Lovely Professional University (LPU) shows, violence can happen even without elections.Story continues below this adIn fact, an ABVP leader not wanting to be named said the elected student unions actually play the role of a “safety valve” and prevent uncontrolled violence. “Elections provide a platform for students to air their grievances. The kind of violence that took place in LPU is partly because private universities don’t have elected student unions. These unions can channel the grievances of students in a structured manner,” he said.Another reason why some state governments are looking to revive elections in universities is that there are signs of youth unrest across India, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)-led protests being an example, with a perception gaining ground that it would be better if elected student outfits could channel youth energies in conventional directions.Salience of student bodiesStudent political workers believe there are several advantages to having elections in colleges and universities. They train political workers and provide a future leadership to the country, training young political workers how to engage with demands of their constituency. They also make students more aware of the stances of political organisations on various national issues – especially in campuses such as JNU, Jadavpur University and UoH.There are everyday advantages too. Students can access accommodations, get help in administrative procedures, and have a safety net when elected student unions are in place.Story continues below this adAn ABVP leader said that the behavior of the police in thanas close to campuses where elected student unions exist is often different from campuses without elections. “The police are more responsible when they know there are elected student unions to be dealt with,” he said, adding that these unions are also the “best means” to convey the concerns and grievances of students to the university administration.For student organisations like the ABVP and NSUI (the Congress’s student wing), elections in universities are the only way to assess their presence and strength, and their activists see elections to various posts as a key outcome of their activism.However, a student leader who did not wish to be identified pointed out why many state governments had been wary of the student union elections. “The Chief Ministers don’t want a power centre to emerge in the form of an elected student union president; they want their loyalists to occupy important positions. Also, the CMs often think that a student union election is perceived as a referendum on the performance of the state government. A BJP CM would not want the NSUI to win, and a Congress CM would not want the ABVP to win. So, they prefer to stall polls.”The victory of the ABVP in the DU polls soon after the CJP-led protests at Jantar Mantar during June-July against the BJP-led Centre over alleged irregularities in the education and exam system was seen as a reality check for the Opposition camp.Vikas Pathak is deputy associate editor with The Indian Express and writes on national politics. He has over 17 years of experience, and has worked earlier with The Hindustan Times and The Hindu, among other publications. He has covered the national BJP, some key central ministries and Parliament for years, and has covered the 2009 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls and many state assembly polls. He has interviewed many Union ministers and Chief Ministers. Vikas has taught as a full-time faculty member at Asian College of Journalism, Chennai; Symbiosis International University, Pune; Jio Institute, Navi Mumbai; and as a guest professor at Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi. Vikas has authored a book, Contesting Nationalisms: Hinduism, Secularism and Untouchability in Colonial Punjab (Primus, 2018), which has been widely reviewed by top academic journals and leading newspapers. He did his PhD, M Phil and MA from JNU, New Delhi, was Student of the Year (2005-06) at ACJ and gold medalist from University Rajasthan College in Jaipur in graduation. He has been invited to top academic institutions like JNU, St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and IIT Delhi as a guest speaker/panellist. ... Read More Tags:KarnatakaMaharashtra