The higher education department will consider allowing Jadavpur and Presidency universities to have entirely elected students’ unions instead of bodies that would have several office-bearers selected by the heads of the institutions, education minister Partha Chatterjee said on Monday.

Chatterjee said his department would examine the statutes of the two universities to find out whether they could conduct the elections on their own and constitute the bodies with only elected members.

The minister was speaking after meeting student representatives from various campuses at Bikash Bhavan. At the meeting, the student representatives of Jadavpur and Presidency universities reiterated their stand against the government’s decision to rob the institutes of their autonomy on holding the polls.

JU was represented by student leaders from all three faculty — engineering, arts and science. Presidency was represented by SFI leaders.

“They (the student leaders of JU and Presidency) cited several points in favour of their stand that they should be allowed to hold the campus polls the way those used to be held till 2017. The two universities are standalone campuses…. I have asked for their statutes. We will consider whether they can be allowed to hold elections in accordance with the old system,” Chatterjee told Metro.

“The issue has to be discussed in detail with chief minister Mamata Banerjee. A decision will be taken after examining the statutes and following discussions with the chief minister. We are open to listening to the opinion of the students. We don’t want to impose anything (on them).”

The West Bengal Universities and Colleges (Composition, Functions and Procedure for Election of Students’ Council) Rules, 2017, introduced in June 2017, states the elections would be a biennial affair.

According to the new rules, the VC would nominate the president, vice-president and the treasurer of the students’ union from among the teachers.

The secretary and assistant secretaries will be elected from among the students.

Earlier, all office-bearers were elected from among students. If the government allows Presidency and JU to have students’ unions like they existed before 2017, it would mean all office-bearers would have to be elected.

Monday’s meeting was called to fix the dates of the elections, which have been put on hold since June 2017.

“I have sought students’ opinion on when the elections can be held. Their opinion is necessary because the elections can only be held between the semesters as the choice-based credit system is in force,” Chatterjee said. “The polls cannot be held between February and April because of the board exams.”

The minister told this newspaper that apart from JU and Presidency, a couple of campuses had also demanded pre-2017 unions.

Representatives of the Trinamul Congress Chhatra Parishad, SFI, Chhatra Parishad and Democratic Students Organisation attended the meeting. The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, of the RSS, was not invited.

When asked why ABVP were not invited, the minister said: “We have plans to hold discussions with them as well. They could not be invited today because we were not sure about the details, such as the names, phone numbers and addresses of the leaders.”