22 years on, Haryana to hold student polls

CHANDIGARH:Fulfilling its promise of holding students’ elections in Haryana’s universities and colleges four years after it found mention in the party’s election manifesto in 2014, the Manohar Lal Khattar-led BJP government today revoked the 22-year-old ban by announcing their conduct in the 2018-19 session.

Geetanjali Gayatri

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 19

Fulfilling its promise of holding students’ elections in Haryana’s universities and colleges four years after it found mention in the party’s election manifesto in 2014, the Manohar Lal Khattar-led BJP government today revoked the 22-year-old ban by announcing their conduct in the 2018-19 session.

Capt Bhupinder Singh, OSD to Chief Minister, said Khattar had taken the decision in view of the promise of the government made in the manifesto and following meetings and discussions held on this subject with student organisations. The student union elections would be conducted by September.

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The panel headed by Prof Tankeshwar Kumar, Vice- Chancellor, Guru Jambeshwar University of Science and Technology, Hisar, in its interim report, had advocated indirect elections. It was unclear though whether the government would hold direct or indirect elections.

A final call, sources said, would be taken after the panel’s final report.

“We will submit our final report in two or three weeks,” Prof Kumar said.

The panel, which included Vice-Chancellors from various universities across Haryana, had suggested indirect elections in its interim report submitted last year. This was met with stiff opposition from political parties with students’ wings, which demanded direct elections.

The students’ elections were discontinued by the Bansi Lal-led Haryana Vikas Party government in 1996. The BJP was an alliance partner of the HVP then. Present Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma held the same portfolio when the elections were discontinued.

After the announcement, nobody from the government was available to explain the announcement. State Congress chief Ashok Tanwar was wary of the announcement. He said this could, in the end, turn out to be only an announcement.

“We will believe the BJP only when elections are held in the state. An indirect election is no election. The INLD’s announcement that it will not contest the first election to students’ bodies and the BJP’s announcement coming a couple of days later indicates that something is going on behind the scenes between the two parties. This is just another attempt at befooling the people,” he said.