Govt to form panel to reintroduce student elections: Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar
Bengaluru: Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar announced on Wednesday that the Karnataka government plans to reintroduce student elections in the state, which were banned in 1989 following incidents of violence.
He revealed that a committee would be formed to examine the issue and propose the next steps for reinstating the elections.
Speaking at a Constitution Day event organised by the Karnataka Congress, Shivakumar emphasised the importance of campus elections in fostering leadership. “Recently, (Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha) Rahul Gandhi wrote a letter to me and Chief Minister (Siddaramaiah) asking us to think about restarting student elections,” Deccan Herald quoted Shivakumar as saying.
“I’m announcing today that we’ll form a small committee and seek a report on this,” he added. Student elections were banned in 1989 after a series of violent incidents in Karnataka, which led to the disappearance of student bodies affiliated with political parties from college campuses.
Shivakumar, who is also the Karnataka Congress president, said former student leaders will be “brought together to study the pros and cons” of bringing back campus elections. “There were many criminal activities taking place back then. We’ll see how we can conduct (student) elections by regulating such criminal activities,” said Shivakumar.
Reflecting on his own experience as a student leader, Shivakumar recalled his time at Sri Jagadguru Renukacharya College. Shivakumar recalled that during his final year of college, his political activism earned him a ticket to contest his first election in 1985 from the erstwhile Sathnur constituency. At just 23 years old, he ran against H.D. Deve Gowda but lost the election.
He lamented that the spirit of student leadership has faded over time. "College elections have stopped. Many of us came through student leadership. Those elections were like a big movement,” Shivakumar added.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
