AMU Women’s College students ask Education Minister to reinstate voting rights; university denies disenfranchisement

A view of Jama Masjid at Aligarh Muslim University at Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh on October 28, 2026.

A group of students of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) Women’s College has approached Union Education Minister Pralhad Joshi, requesting his intervention so that they can vote in the Students’ Union election scheduled for November 5, 2026.

The Hindu reported on Monday (November 2, 2026) that more than 4,000 students in the Women’s College did not have voting rights in the Aligarh Muslim University Students’ Union (AMUSU) elections.

The AMU, in a statement to The Hindu, denied any disenfranchisement. The students mentioned in the report were students of the Women’s College, where they had taken admission and were enrolled.

“Some of them have only been allowed to attend classes in departments on the main campus; this does not make them students of those departments. They will vote in the election of their own Students’ Union at the Women’s College, which is being held on November 5, the same day as the AMUSU election,” the AMU’s Public Relations Officer said, adding that no woman student had been denied her vote.

The students sent a letter to Mr. Joshi, Minister of State for Education Jayant Chowdhury, Union Higher Education Secretary Deepti Gaur Mukerjee and Additional Secretary Anandrao V. Patil. They said they had submitted their concerns to the National Task Force, chaired by Justice (retd.) S. Ravindra Bhat, which studied mental health problems and alleged discrimination in higher education institutions.

“The disenfranchisement of Women’s College students from the AMU Students’ Union (AMUSU), coupled with the restriction of their voting rights to the college level, has made the matter all the more pressing and calls for immediate attention,” they said in the letter.

In the nine-page memorandum, a copy of which is with The Hindu, the students said the issue of undergraduate women students’ voting rights, and their exclusion from AMUSU elections, concerns equal student representation, electoral eligibility and institutional discrimination.

“The central concern is that undergraduate students studying at Women’s College are being denied the same democratic participation and representation in the AMUSU as other undergraduate students of AMU. Earlier, Women’s College students had participated in AMUSU elections during 2010-11 and 2011-12, as per the recommendations of the Lyngdoh Committee.

In 2012, the university reverted arbitrarily to a separate-union arrangement, citing geographical distance and the existence of a separate Women’s College Students’ Union (WCSU) in the past, which was later formalised as Election Regulation, 2019.

The current election is being conducted as per the Election Regulation 2019, denying the right to vote and representation/contest to undergraduate women students of the Women’s College in AMUSU, and restricting their voting rights to College level,” the students argued.

“The exclusion of undergraduate women students in general and FYUP (Four-Year Undergraduate Programme) Final year students in particular is a sheer violation of their constitutional rights,” the complaint added.

“Women students should be given the option to pursue their studies either in the Departments or at the Women’s College. The number of seats allocated for women students should be brought at par with those allocated for male students,” they demanded.

The memorandum also drew the Minister’s attention to issues including an inadequate number of faculty, segregation in the residential educational campus, and rules for outings “of extreme kind, denying the women students some of the basic constitutional rights and freedoms, and access to university resources”.