After 37 years, Karnataka allows student union elections

On Wednesday, the Karnataka Cabinet approved recommendations from a sub-committee to end a 37-year ban on college student union elections, permitting them to take place without political affiliations. Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara informed reporters that each student union will have a president, two vice-presidents, a general secretary, two joint secretaries, and a six-member executive committee.

The union will designate positions for women, reserving one vice-president, one joint secretary, and two executive committee positions for female candidates. However, the government declined to implement caste-based reservations.

The college management must hold student body elections if the students support the idea; otherwise, the elections can be canceled. Candidates contesting the student union polls are barred from campaigning under the banner of any student organizations linked to political parties. Parameshwara clarified that candidates affiliated with student organizations can run for office as long as they do not do so under the labels of political student groups.

The idea of reviving student body elections was introduced in the Budget speech earlier this year. A Cabinet sub-committee was established to discuss the matter, which recently decided to allow campus elections in all degree and Pre-University colleges in the first phase. The government banned student body polls in 1989 following a series of violent incidents and campus clashes.