Bengaluru, 9 September

In a significant reform for higher education, the Karnataka Cabinet on Wednesday approved conducting student union elections across all universities in the State from the academic year of 2026-27, officially lifting a ban that has been in place for over 37 years. 

Briefing reporters after the Cabinet meeting at Vidhana Soudha, Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara said that student representative bodies will comprise a President, two Vice-Presidents (with one seat reserved for a woman), a General Secretary, and a Joint Secretary (reserved for a woman). He added that there will be no caste-based reservation in the bodies. 

The government has also made it clear that political parties and external political organisations, including the NSUI or ABVP, will be prohibited from participating or interfering in university campus elections. 

Parameshwara also indicated that student union elections were not being made mandatory in private universities. 

“If a particular management decides that they do not want to conduct the elections, that is their decision,” he said. “But suppose the students decide that they want elections, then the students should decide, not the management.”

Both Parameshwara and Chief Minister DK Shivakumar have been pushing for student union elections in colleges, noting that such bodies had significantly shaped their lives when they were students. 

A decision to hold the elections was cleared in the budget, Parameshwara noted. 

“We have proposed that students should be encouraged to develop democratic values and a sense of responsibility. Earlier, elections used to be held in colleges, student elections. But they were banned for some reason,” he added.