While the Congress-led government in Karnataka has proposed to revoke a ban on student union elections in colleges and universities, which has been in place for about three decades, the trend of stalled elections for student bodies in the higher education institutions (HEIs) has been seen in a slew of states across the country.
The Congress dispensation in Karnataka set the ball rolling to reintroduce student union elections, constituting a nine-member committee under Medical Education Minister Sharan Prakash Patil in December 2025 to examine the possibility and modalities of resuming these polls in the state again.
This was an initiative of Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, who is also the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president. The idea, say state Congress leaders, is to train the youth in politics for the future.
Many states have seen the student union polls being discontinued at different points of time, which, insiders in academic circles say, have been responses to such elections often turning violent. Even in cases where these elections have been held regularly, they have often been marred by allegations of widespread use of money.
On the question of student union elections, the stakes are always high for all parties across the political spectrum. A large number of prominent leaders cutting across party lines started their innings from student politics, including Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad, Ashok Gehlot, Ajay Maken, Nitin Gadkari, Dharmendra Pradhan, Mamata Banerjee, Shivakumar, K C Venugopal, Rekha Gupta or the late Arun Jaitley, among others.
However, the degeneration of student body polls into on-campus confrontations, agitations and even violence have disrupted elections in many central and state universities, making them an irregular exercise.
Even in the HEIs that see regular student union polls, various models with their pros and cons have been seen over the years.
Central, state universities
The elections to universities like JNU are ideologically charged and even polarising, but are not linked with money or muscle power. The student union polls in the JNU are said to be an “informative” affair – general body meetings with speeches, the presidential debate and pamphlet wars on multiple national and international matters.
Such an election model, also replicated to a degree in Hyderabad University, is meant to make a student an “informed citizen with a critical mind”.
In contrast, the elections in Delhi University (DU) are said to witness alleged use of money and muscle power. While JNU has been known to produce several political ideologues and Rajya Sabha politicians, DU has been known as a political nursery of many MLAs and MPs.
Parties like the BJP, Congress and the Left take keen interest in these elections, to the extent that their senior leaders coordinate with the leaders and candidates of their respective student wings and even undertake campaigns for them.
There have been no student union elections in Jamia Millia Islamia since 2006. In BHU, there has been no student body elections since 1996, and in AMU since 2018.
Since 2018, Allahabad University has also not had any student union elections, while the central University of Himachal Pradesh has not seen any student body polls since 2019. The University of Ladakh has also not had any student union elections since 2024.
Among central universities, JNU, DU, Assam University, University of Hyderabad, University of Kerala and Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University still have regular elections to their student unions.
Among state universities, Panjab University, Chandigarh, has regular student union elections. Jadavpur University (JU) in Kolkata has not seen student union elections since 2020. While Patna University has regular elections, all other Bihar universities has seen elections being stopped in 2018.
In UP, there has been a ban on student union elections in state varsities due to frequent violence since 2018. These polls in Chaudhary Charan Singh University, Meerut, were halted in 2017 itself, and those in Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gorakhpur University and the University of Lucknow in 2016 and 2012, respectively.
In most Gujarat state universities, the student union elections were discontinued in 2023.
Private institutions of higher education generally do not hold any student union elections, but sometimes the Student Council’s representatives are nominated at the departmental level there.
IITs, IIMs, NITs
In IITs, while there are regular elections to their Student Councils, there is no direct involvement of political parties in them. However, behind the scenes, the RSS’ student wing ABVP and the Left student outfits are known to mount attempts to mobilise their supporters there.
However, the purpose of the student body elections in the IITs is said to be different from that of the central or state universities. “The IIT system of elected student representation gives a chance to victorious candidates to have better opportunities in job placement in companies with a management job profile. The students who have served in a position of responsibility have a better chance to land a high paying job. They do not contest elections with an eye on becoming MLAs and MPs later, unlike students in central and state universities,” says Vijay Ratna Prabhakar, a PhD student at IIT Delhi, who is also the national co-convenor of the ABVP-linked Think India. “First and second year students look up to these representatives, as they end up getting high-salary jobs.”
However, this also means, Prabhakar adds, that they head into jobs that are non-technical, and thus have less to do with the branch that they studied.
In IITs of Bombay, Madras, Kanpur and Kharagpur, there is a direct election to the Student Council posts.
In IIT Delhi, there are indirect polls for these posts. Here, there are direct elections to the 17 hostels’ posts, and also for representatives of five boards – the student welfare board, recreational cultural activities board, sports board, publications board, and the hostel management board. The MSc, MTech and PhD students also choose their representatives through a vote. All these elected representatives then elect the Student Council’s office-bearers.
In the new IITs, the Student Councils are not considered “effective bodies” and are sometimes even constituted through interviews, said an IIT student on condition of anonymity.
There are no direct elections to any student body in NITs, where the Student Councils are elected or nominated department-wise. Not all IIMs have Student Councils at the institute level, but they have hostels and mess secretaries who are elected. The national law universities also generally have elected Student Councils.