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 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.
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. 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. 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 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.
