Student bodies gear up for changes in Lyngdoh guidelines

Student leaders from various groups from different parts of the country on Wednesday here agreed upon the need to overhaul the Lyngdoh Committee guidelines on student union elections.

They called for reservation of seats for women and a "revision" of expenses allowed to each candidate for contesting election.

A total of 30 student groups from at least 15 states had gathered at the call of Congress's National Students' Union of India (NSUI) to deliberate on a number of changes suggested by the NSUI in the election guidelines -- proposed by a committee headed by James Michael Lyngdoh, a former Chief Election Commissioner in 2006.

A final draft of all recommendations will be prepared two days later and given to political leaders to be proposed as an amendment bill in Parliament.

An independent election commission, compulsory and direct election through ballot paper, online voting and cyber laws to regulate the "malicious social media campaign" were the other reforms proposed and agreed to by all the groups.

Proposal recommending reduction in age limit for contesting assembly and general election was, however, not agreed to by many groups, who cited their reservations against the likelihood of the measure getting misused by political leaders for launching their scions and thus bolstering "dynasty politics".

Groups affiliated with left parties like All India Students Federation, Students' Federation of India and All India Students Association, along with many others including Students Islamic Organisation, Swaraj Abhiyan, Joint Action Committee - BHU, Jamia Students Forum, Telangana Students' Union, YSR Students Union, Jammu and Kashmir Pahari Revolutionary Moment and Panjab Students Union were among those present at the meeting.

Although the Lyngdoh guidelines are mandatory for all colleges and universities and its first clause says that elections must be held in the institutes, many universities like the Banaras Hindu University and Osmania University do not have a student body and elections have not been held there since long.

Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the RSS' student wing and an arch-adversary of the NSUI, was not invited to the meet.

--IANS

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