Odisha student union elections have become a test of whether higher education institutions can provide students with a meaningful role in campus governance. Nearly nine academic years after regular polls were suspended, the state government is again considering their restoration, but students still have no election schedule and the latest assurance offers no clear timeline.
The immediate issue is a delayed promise. Student union elections were last held across Odisha’s colleges and universities in 2017. The 2018 election cycle was disrupted by Cyclone Titli and campus disturbances, after which the government continued to keep the polls on hold, citing the need to preserve a peaceful academic environment. The Covid-19 pandemic extended the suspension.
The current government committed to bringing the elections back soon after taking office. In December 2024, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi said student union elections would resume from the 2025-26 academic session and would not be stopped again. That academic year passed without polls. With the 2026-27 academic year now underway, the government has again expressed its intention to hold elections, but has not set a date.
Higher education minister Suryabanshi Suraj has said the government is positive about conducting the elections and that the department is prepared. He said he had sought recommendations on holding polls across all public higher educational institutions in the state. The minister, however, did not indicate when the elections would take place. With the Durga Puja vacation approaching, students face another period of uncertainty because campus polls have traditionally been held before the festive break.
That uncertainty matters because the absence of elections has changed how student grievances reach university and college administrations. Students interviewed by The Times of India identified faculty vacancies, hostel accommodation, food quality and the entry of outsiders as continuing concerns. Utkal University student Sukesh Tripathy said protests over such issues often remained unorganised and that an elected union could take grievances directly to the administration.
Ravenshaw University student Muskan Ray described student elections as a way to raise issues collectively while developing leadership and negotiation skills. Her argument points to a function of campus elections that is broader than choosing office-bearers. An elected union can act as an institutional channel between students and administrators, provided the university recognises its mandate and gives it a defined role.
The state has not left campuses without any form of student representation. In 2019, the higher education department provided for the nomination of student representatives to university and college bodies wherever student representation was required. Institutions have since used different arrangements, including nominated representatives, class representatives, student councils, cultural associations and activity-based groups.
These arrangements may allow institutions to fill specific committees or organise activities, but students and former union leaders say they do not carry the same authority as an elected union. Former Utkal University students’ union president Tanmay Swain argued that a nominated representative is primarily accountable to the institution that selects or approves the person, while an elected president or secretary has a direct mandate from students.
This distinction is central to the governance question. Representation is not only about whether a student’s name appears on a committee. It is also about who can claim to speak for a wider student body, how that person receives authority and whether students can replace or challenge the representative. The current system, as described by students and former union leaders, provides forms of participation without restoring a common electoral mandate.
The absence of elected unions has also not ended student politics. Political party student wings continue to organise programmes and protests and raise issues related to infrastructure, faculty shortages and student welfare. This means that the suspension of formal elections has not removed collective mobilisation from campuses. Instead, it has separated student activity from a regular institutional process through which representatives are chosen by students.
That separation became more contentious this year after the higher education department issued a model code of conduct governing student activities. Student groups argued that restrictions on protests could further narrow the avenues available to them for raising grievances. The available evidence does not establish how the code has been implemented across institutions, but its timing has made the question of representation more important: when elected bodies are absent, students have fewer recognised channels through which disagreements with administrations can be organised and presented.
The government’s stated concern has historically been the maintenance of a peaceful academic environment. That concern was cited after the disrupted 2018 cycle, while the pandemic created a separate operational reason for continued suspension. However, the current situation is no longer explained by one disruption alone. The elections have remained suspended through several academic cycles, including the period after the government’s public commitment to restore them.
The institutional alternative introduced in 2019 was designed to provide representation where required, but it did not settle the larger issue of electoral legitimacy. Nominated representatives can support administrative consultation, and class or activity-based groups can give students platforms for specific concerns. They do not necessarily perform the same collective function as a union elected across a campus.
This is particularly relevant in large public institutions, where problems such as faculty vacancies, hostel shortages and food quality affect groups of students rather than individual applicants. Without a recognised student body, complaints may remain fragmented across departments, hostels or campuses. Students can still protest, but their concerns may not arrive at the administration through a single body with a defined mandate.
The delay also illustrates the difference between a political commitment and an administrative process. Restoring elections across public higher educational institutions requires more than an announcement. The department must determine the institutions covered, establish an election schedule, communicate the rules, manage campus security and clarify the role of elected bodies within university governance. The minister’s statement that recommendations have been sought indicates that this process is still under deliberation, rather than complete.
The timeline is therefore as important as the promise. The chief minister’s December 2024 commitment referred to the 2025-26 academic session. The absence of elections during that session has already turned the issue into a question of implementation. The minister’s latest assurance keeps the possibility alive but does not answer whether polls will be held during the current academic year or whether institutions will again move through the year without elected unions.
The gap has consequences for students who entered higher education after 2017. A student beginning college or university in the current academic year may have spent the entire period of higher education without experiencing a regular student election. The result is not merely a missing annual event. It is the absence of a recurring institutional practice through which students learn how campus decisions are contested, negotiated and represented.
At the same time, the available evidence does not show that elections alone would resolve faculty shortages, hostel accommodation problems, food quality or concerns about outsiders entering campuses. Those issues remain administrative and infrastructure-related problems requiring action by institutions and the higher education system. An elected union could provide a channel for raising them, but the source material does not establish that it would automatically produce solutions.
That distinction should shape the debate. Restoring elections would address the representation deficit, not substitute for university administration. The effectiveness of any revived union would depend on the rules governing its powers, its relationship with administrators and the extent to which student concerns are formally considered. The government’s model code of conduct will also influence how much space elected representatives have to organise and protest.
The larger urban and institutional question is how public campuses govern people who live, study and use shared facilities together. Universities and colleges are small but complex civic environments. They have housing in the form of hostels, food systems, internal mobility, public facilities, security arrangements and administrative decision-making. When representation is weak, problems in those systems can become individual complaints rather than collective governance issues.
Odisha’s pending decision therefore concerns more than the return of a campus poll. It concerns whether the state will restore an elected layer of institutional representation after almost nine years, and whether that layer will have a recognised role in addressing student welfare and campus administration. The evidence confirms that the government has expressed its intention to hold elections and that the department says it is preparing recommendations. What remains unresolved is the schedule, the operational framework and the authority elected unions would receive once restored.
