By forcing the formidable Union government to seek the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan with their relentless protests at Jantar Mantar recently, Gen Z has learned to seek accountability from those in power. Current protests with a similar objective in Jharkhand mean youngsters are no longer shying away from politics and activism.
Coinciding with the growing interest among the younger generation in political activities, the Madhya Pradesh government has assured the Jabalpur-based principal bench of the high court that it will conduct student union elections in colleges and universities across the state in September.
The Long Shadow of Sabharwal on MP’s Campus Politics
Ever since Prof H S Sabharwal’s death in Ujjain in 2006, elections to students’ bodies have been held intermittently. The last elections were held way back in 2017. Prof Sabharwal, who taught in Madhav College, Ujjain, was allegedly beaten up by activists of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) who were unhappy over the postponement of elections. In his late 50s, the professor died of a heart attack. Courts had acquitted ABVP activists of the murder charge.
The case had hit national headlines, causing a major embarrassment to the BJP government due to the alleged involvement of a students’ body affiliated with the RSS, its ideological fountainhead. Thereafter, the elections to these bodies were held only sporadically, with the state government citing law and order and other technical difficulties. Even when the Kamal Nath-led Congress government was in power for 15 months between 2018 and 2020, the elections were not held.
The government also maintained that rallies and campaigns took their toll on academic activities, disrupting the academic calendar. No elections were conducted from 2017 onwards, and then the Covid pandemic struck. A Jabalpur resident, Adnan Ansari, who’s associated with the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), a body affiliated with the Congress, moved the high court in 2024 seeking a direction to the state government to conduct the elections.
When the matter came up for hearing before a division bench led by acting Chief Justice Vivek Rusia and Justice Pradeep Mittal on July 15, the advocate general submitted that the academic calendar for 2026-27 was being prepared. In the last hearing, the bench was told in a written reply that the higher education department had made a provision for the elections. The court said local authorities will take a call on deployment of police force as and when sought by college and university functionaries.
The Mohan Yadav government has not made it clear whether the elections will be direct or indirect. In the direct mode, all students cast votes for posts like president and vice-president. The indirect system involves merit, with only those students who have cleared all subjects eligible to contest. Students vote for their class representative (CR). The CRs then choose the president, vice-president and others.
Why MP Governments Have Kept Campus Politics at Bay
Incidentally, the 2017 elections were held only because the ABVP had alleged that the education mafia was running a parallel network in the state. The right-wing students’ body had taken to the streets in large numbers in 2016, forcing the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government to announce that the elections would be held in 2017. Then Higher Education Minister Jaibhan Singh Pawaiya, who was once the national president of Bajrang Dal, came to the ABVP protest site in the state capital to placate the protesters. Once the demand for elections was accepted, the ABVP called the announcement ‘historic’, saying it would bring positive change in education.
Former CM Chouhan, now Union Agriculture Minister, and many others, including CM Mohan Yadav, are products of student politics. The government’s reluctance to hold elections stemmed from the fear of organised protests, which have now become commonplace.
