IIT-B Student Elections Start with Bizzare Agenda

With elections on the cards, students of IIT-B are all set to vote for their favourite candidate in the elections, today. One student is to be elected for each category in sports, academic affairs, hostel affairs, Mood-Indigo. Since the elections are basically for students, the agendas raised in the campaigns were also based on what students require.

These include tackling the issue of food hygiene and quality by levying fines, to donating excess food to non-governmental organizations, to preventing wastage, pushing for a unisex hair salon on campus, and setting up of an independent private medical clinic at subsidized rates for students, car-pooling facility on the campus, setting up a snack-vending machine on campus, wi-fi connectivity etc.

One of the major agendas was to improve the academic policy reforms to increase interaction between students and professors by introducing 'ask me anything' sessions.

A contestant claimed that manifestos are usually the ideology of students and also depict the needs of campus residents. "Each of the candidates tries to meet at least 100 students from the campus before preparing their manifesto. A debate session between the candidates also goes live before the elections for voters to help choose their representatives where the candidates have to justify their manifestos," said the contestant.

While it is not possible to fulfil 100% of the promises that have been made, students do a decent job. A former general secretary for hostel affairs said that it is fairly difficult to complete all that is put up on the agenda, but added that there is a lot of cooperation from the institute. "All the requests that need to be fulfilled with finances take a lot of time to be approved," said this former general secretary who did not wish to be named.