IIEST Shibpur had its students’ senate elections on Tuesday.

The system followed at the central academic institute stands in contrast to the kind of campus elections witnessed at most state universities and colleges in Bengal.

At Shibpur, political parties had no play in the polls. It was a students’ affair.

During campus polls at state universities and colleges, the students’ wings of the Trinamool Congress, CPM, Congress and the RSS used to engage in a bitter turf war, often ending in skirmishes and chaos.

Campus polls in the state have remained stalled for seven years barring a few exceptions in a handful of unitary universities.

The protests after the death of a junior doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital has triggered a demand for the restoration of the campus elections.

The state government has promised students’ union elections at medical colleges by March 2025.

At the IIEST, every student is a member of the students’ academic society of the department, school or the centre concerned.

There is one constituency from each year of the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Each constituency elects a representative to the students’ academic
society.

The secretary, assistant secretary and treasurer of the senate are elected by the members of the students’ academic societies.

The use of any banner or emblem of any political party is prohibited.

IIEST, in its erstwhile avatar as the Bengal Engineering and Science University
(Besu), which was a state-aided university, had witnessed clashes between SFI, the students wing of CPM, and supporters of the Independents’ Consolidation during campus polls.

The institute started its journey as IIEST in 2014.

At IIT Kharagpur, another central academic institute, the representatives of the Technology Students’ Gymkhana are elected in a more or less similar pattern.

Campus elections at state- aided colleges and universities in Bengal saw trouble from
the time candidates filed nomination.

During one such clash, which spilled onto the road outside, a Kolkata Police officer posted outside Harimohan Ghose College in Garden Reach was shot dead in February 2013.

Some vice-chancellors had then proposed that the nomination papers for the campus polls be held online.

The Mamata Banerjee government had drafted the West Bengal Universities and Colleges (Composition, Functions and Procedure for Election of Students’ Council) Rules, 2017, in an attempt to curb campus poll violence.

A VC said that although the 2017 rules have provisions like “the students’ council of colleges and universities shall not use any banner or emblem of any political party in any manner during election or campaigning and every student contesting in the election as candidate or as class representative shall be identified by his own name, class or section and roll number and nothing else”, it was difficult to implement the provision because the political parties don’t want to risk losing their hold over a campus.

The rules don’t include online filing of nomination papers.

“The pattern was the same during the 34-year Left rule,” a former VC said.

Education minister Bratya Basu had in July 2022 said the state government was keen to conduct campus elections “in a free and fair way” and wanted the participation of student outfits of the opposition parties’ in the polls.