AMU Student Union Elections after eight years; female students raise concerns over voting rights

Student Union elections are being held at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) after a long hiatus of nearly eight years. According to an NDTV India report, approximately 22,000 male and female students will exercise their right to vote in this election process. Through this election, representatives will be chosen for five important posts in the university, including the President, Vice-President, and Secretary, as well as members of the Cabinet and the AMU Court.

However, controversies have emerged amidst the preparations for these elections. According to a report by The Hindu, a group of students from the AMU Women's College has written a letter to Union Education Minister Pralhad Joshi requesting his intervention. These students have demanded that they be given the opportunity to vote in the Student Union elections scheduled for November 5, 2026. The report states that more than 4,000 female students of the Women's College do not have the right to vote in the Aligarh Muslim University Students' Union (AMUSU) elections.

The students have also sent letters to Union Minister of State for Education Jayant Chaudhary, Union Secretary of Higher Education Deepti Gaur Mukherjee, and Additional Secretary Anandrao V. Patil. Additionally, they have presented their concerns before the National Task Force headed by Justice (Retd) S. Ravindra Bhat. In a nine-page memorandum, the students argued that excluding them from the AMUSU elections is a violation of equal representation and democratic participation. They stated that during 2010-11 and 2011-12, female students of the Women's College had participated in the AMUSU elections as per the recommendations of the Lingdo Committee, but in 2012, the university changed this arrangement citing geographical distance and the existence of a separate Women's College Students' Union (WCSU), which was later formalized in the 2019 election rules.

The students contend that under the 2019 rules, they have no right to vote or contest in the AMUSU, which is a violation of their constitutional rights. Specifically, final-year students of the Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) have been excluded from this process. They demand that female students should have the option to study in departments or the Women's College, and the number of seats for women should be equal to those for men.

On the other hand, the university administration has denied these allegations. In a statement given to The Hindu, the Public Relations Officer of AMU clarified that no female student has been deprived of her voting rights. He explained that students who have taken admission in the Women's College will vote in their own college's student union elections on November 5, the same day the AMUSU elections are to be held. He further added that while some female students have been allowed to attend classes in the departments of the main campus, it does not mean they have become students of those departments.

This entire sequence of events has heated up the atmosphere of the elections being held after a long time, where on one hand the administration is preparing to conduct the polls, and on the other, female students are demanding equal rights.