Forcing Elections

A delegation led by Rahul Gandhi was all it took for BHU and AMU to hold student elections

Ministries don’t work on Saturdays but ministers sometimes do. Especially if they have important matters to attend to or important people to meet. So, last Saturday, Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal too kept the doors of his official residence open for an important visitor: Congress General Secretary and Lok Sabha MP Rahul Gandhi led a delegation of student leaders from Uttar Pradesh’s three central universities to Sibal’s house. The delegation’s demand is an old one: hold student body elections at Allahabad University, Benaras Hindu University (BHU) and Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). They have been approaching the university authorities as well as the HRD Ministry for a long time. “Last year in September, when the delegation sought an appointment with the minister, they did not get one,” says a member of the delegation that did finally manage to meet him.
Gandhi, who is also a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on HRD, demanded from Sibal that he intervene in the matter and ask the vice-chancellors (VCs) of the three universities to hold student body elections there. AMU last had an elected students union in 2007 and Allahabad University in 2005. BHU hasn’t had elections in over 13 years now. Gandhi told Sibal that these universities have a “historical character and have provided political leaders to the country… the flow of democracy should not stop” for the want of elections. “This is the first time that Rahul Gandhi has met a minister with a delegation. Before this, he has only taken delegations to the Prime Minister,” says Rahul Rai, president of the Uttar Pradesh chapter of the National Students Union of India (NSUI). “The minister told him that these are autonomous universities and he cannot issue orders, but he strongly backs the demand,” Rai adds. While Sibal said he strongly backed the demand and would take up the matter with the VCs, Rahul is said to have reminded him that even autonomous universities run on Central assistance. And he left soon after to campaign in Bihar. The delegation, meanwhile, stayed on, and Sibal, to back his claim of backing the demand, started making calls to the vice-chancellors. While the BHU VC was in a university programme, Sibal was able to get AMU’s vice-chancellor, Professor PK Abdul Azis, on the line in Kolkata. “The minister spoke to him firmly and told him that student elections should be held as soon as possible. Professor Azis said he would hold the elections in January. The minister summoned him to Delhi,” a delegation member says.
After the meeting, Sibal said, “The students, along with Rahul met me and explained the aspirations of students… that they should be an integral part of the democratic process of the universities.”
Sibal is learnt to have told the AMU VC that if elections can be held in January, he can hold them in November as well. Azis appeared the next day and explained to Sibal that due to university examinations from 9 November till the end of December, he could only organise elections in January 2011. Meanwhile, BHU’s vice chancellor, DP Singh, who Sibal spoke with next, has also assured the minister that the university will hold elections starting this coming session. All it took was a little persuasion.

About The Author

Jatin Gandhi

Jatin Gandhi has covered politics and policy for over a decade now for print, TV and the web. He is Deputy Political Editor at Open.