For the first time in quite a few years, the ruling party’s student wing looks set to be missing from the highest decision-making bodies of Jadavpur University (JU).

The SFI, students’ wing of the CPM, has taken a surprise beating from two other students’ unions — the All-India Democratic Students’ Organisation (AIDSO) and the Progressive Democratic Students’ Federation (PDSF) — in the polls to the electoral college that will select representatives to JU’s university court and executive council.

The polls, which took place on Thursday, saw the SFI managing to get 70 students in, but the AIDSO and the PDSF together succeeded in getting the electoral college packed with nearly 100 members.

The elections are crucial because this electoral college sends students’ representatives to the two bodies — court and executive council — that ratify every important decision, ranging from the appointment of a teacher to the go-ahead for an increase in fees, that the university takes.

Students have six seats reserved for them in the university court and the executive council has two representatives from the students’ community. The numbers game suggests that all eight seats are now likely to be bagged by students affiliated to the AIDSO and the PDSF.

This, admit senior campus officials, may make it difficult for the university to push through many decisions, particularly because most key decisions — on issues like fee-hike and privatisation — have been opposed by the two organisations.

Though both the court and the council are still packed with CPM sympathisers, officials admit that it will be “unseemly and difficult” to implement decisions in the face of sustained opposition from students’ representatives.