Earlier this week, All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Sachin Pilot joined a protest held by the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), the Congress’s student wing, in Jaipur to demand student union polls in Rajasthan.
As the police used water cannons to disperse the demonstrators at the protest on Tuesday, the former Deputy Chief Minister was also hit with water spray. And the resulting images brought focus to the fact that educational institutions in Rajasthan had seen student body elections only once in the last six years. First, the Congress and now the BJP have been shying away from holding the polls, which have been on hold since the Covid-19 pandemic five years ago. While the NSUI is demanding student body elections, it was the Congress that put them on hold under the previous Ashok Gehlot government.
After 2019, when there was a pause beginning in 2020, the Gehlot government gave the go-ahead for the student union elections in 2022. However, the results embarrassed the ruling party. In the prestigious Rajasthan University Students’ Union (RUSU) polls, independent Nirmal Choudhary, now with Congress, defeated his nearest rival, NSUI rebel Niharika Jorwal, to become the RUSU president. But for both NSUI and the ruling Congress, it was especially embarrassing as the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the RSS’s student wing, won the president post in seven universities, while the NSUI drew a blank.
The RUSU, in the seat of power, hasn’t been a cakewalk for the ABVP either, which has had to deal with rebels too. In the 2019 elections, NSUI rebel Pooja Verma won the RUSU president election. A year before, it was Vinod Jhakhar who had also rebelled from the NSUI while in 2017, it was Pawan Yadav who had rebelled from the ABVP. In 2016, the winner was ABVP rebel Ankit Dhayal.
It was way back in 2015 that either of the two main student outfits, NSUI and ABVP, had bagged the post, with NSUI’s Satveer Chaudhary winning the RUSU president post that year.
The Gehlot government, testing the waters in 2022, ended up singeing its hands. Expectedly, the following year, which was also the year when Assembly polls were held, the government skipped the polls.
Officially, the Gehlot government cited gross violations of the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations and the use of money and muscle power in student elections, among others. Both the ABVP and the NSUI protested against the decision.
Blame game
However, according to political observers, had the Congress government gone ahead with the student union elections in 2023, the party would have performed better in the subsequent Assembly elections. Between 2022 and 2023, a sizable section of the youth were mobilised thanks to the Youth Congress election and eventually about 20 lakh votes were polled. Moreover, two of the top three candidates for the president’s post were Pilot camp leaders, including Abhimanyu Poonia who won and was eventually elected as an MLA later that year. Like for Poonia, the Youth Congress mobilisation affected several other seats.
Faced with questions now, the BJP has been citing how it was the Gehlot government that put a pause on the student union elections, with Deputy CM Prem Chand Bairwa, also the Higher Education minister, saying that students should be questioning Gehlot about why elections weren’t held during his tenure.
Gehlot was quick to point out that it was under the BJP government (2003-08), when “student union elections were stopped, and in 2010, the then Congress government (led by him) started student union elections”.
Meeting a delegation of protesting student leaders, Gehlot said, “Why doesn’t the BJP government in Rajasthan understand that student union elections are extremely important for preparing future politicians? The NSUI, along with all student organisations, is protesting to hold elections. When all organisations want it, what is the problem in conducting student union elections?”
Senior political observer Tribhuvan said Gehlot wanted to be seen as connected to the youth too, and has therefore been vocal about student union polls. On parties avoiding student union polls, he said, “The political leadership doesn’t want new leaders as they can become a bit of a trouble for the parties and established politicians. Hanuman Beniwal, Rajendra Rathore, Raghu Sharma, Mahesh Joshi, et al, came up through student politics. But now, the political leaders don’t want anyone else to occupy that space other than their children.”
Former State Information Commissioner Narayan Bareth, also a political analyst, said for some time now the student movement had been quiet. “It doesn’t speak about farmers, labourers, atrocities against women employees, etc. Earlier, the campus atmosphere affected the atmosphere outside. But now, the outside atmosphere affects the campus,” he said.
BJP spokesperson Laxmikant Bhardwaj said, “The higher education minister has already made things clear. It was the Congress government which stopped the student body polls and Congress workers themselves are protesting for it now. They should make it clear why they put a stop to the elections.”
He said the BJP “cares about the interests of the students” and the government would restart the elections when the “circumstances were right”.