BHUBANESWAR: For the fifth year in a row, student union elections may not be held in higher education institutions of Odisha. Although stakeholders in the state’s higher education system said the college elections have been called off this time too, there is no official word from the Higher Education department yet.
In 2017 when the last election was held, five universities including Utkal and Ravenshaw and eight colleges did not go to the polls due to student violence. College elections have not been held since 2018 when it faced cyclone Titli.
In 2019, the elections were stalled because of campus violence and it was this year that the then principal secretary of the Higher Education department Saswat Mishra directed for cancellation of such elections till further orders.
And he called for the nomination of students’ representatives to various bodies of higher education institutions as an alternative. Usually, the students’ union elections are held in colleges and universities before the Dussehra vacation (September-October). While in 2020 and 2021, the elections were not held due to the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been no modification or cancellation of the 2019 directive this year so far.
Since there are no polls, the Biju Chhatra Janata Dal (BCJD) won the students' elections in a majority of the institutions in 2017, in October this year formed students’ committees in every college and university to look into issues faced by the students, said Devi Tripathy, BCJD president. The ragging accused in Binayak Acharya college in Berhampur was the convenor of the institution’s students’ committee.
Opposition outfits are fuming. “This reflects how these committees are operating on campuses which are witnessing ragging and other forms of violence every now and then. Besides, only BCJD members of an institution are members of these committees,” said Soubhagya Mohanty, state secretary of AVBP. He said there are a lot many issues that higher educational institutes are facing such as faculty and infrastructure crises and an election can expose the misdoings of the BCJD in ensuring students’ development on the campuses.
Similarly, Odisha Chhatra Congress president Yashir Nawaz questioned the cancellation of college polls at a time when the government could organise bypolls, panchayat and general elections in the last four years.
Higher Education Minister Rohit Pujari told The New Indian Express that no decision has yet been taken on lifting the curb on college elections in Odisha. Stating that the department is now focussing on streamlining the teaching-learning process after two years of the pandemic, Pujari said it cannot be still said that campuses will be free of violence if the elections are held.
The Minister did not comment on if students’ representatives to various bodies of universities and colleges would be nominated this time.