Odisha To See Students’ Union Elections After 7-Year Gap, Confirms Law Minister

Bhubaneswar: The students’ union elections will be held in Odisha from next year, Law Minister Prithiviraj Harichandan informed on Monday.

“Elections are usually held in the first week of September. Since the new government took charge in June, we did not have adequate time to take the necessary steps in this direction. The colleges will get prepared accordingly this year and elections will be held from next year. We have almost taken a decision in this regard,” he told reporters.

Campus elections have not taken place in the state since 2018. Prior to that too, college elections were stopped intermittently. While no student councils have been elected in the last six years on the pretext for maintaining peace on campuses, higher education institutions have been nominating student representatives to various bodies where it is required.

In September 2023, palpable tension prevailed on campuses as no date was set aside for the students union elections in the common academic calendar for the academic session of 2023-24 for universities and colleges released by the Higher Education department. Usually, the election is held prior to Durga Puja vacations (September-October).

There were protests in Utkal University here and Akhil Bharatiya Bidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) — the youth wing of BJP – also filed a petition seeking the Orissa High Court’s intervention in the matter.

College elections were cancelled in 2018 due to cyclone Titli. Even in 2017 when elections were last held, five universities, including Utkal and Ravenshaw, and eight colleges did not go to the polls due to student violence. In 2019, the elections were stalled because of campus violence and the then principal secretary, Higher Education, Saswat Mishra directed for cancellation of such elections till further orders while calling for nomination of students’ representatives to various bodies of higher education institutions as an alternative.

In 2020 and 2021, students’ union election were not held due to COVID-19 pandemic. The 2019 directive was neither cancelled nor modified in the subsequent two years.