The Dhaka University Central Students’ Union (DUCSU) is well known for manufacturing leaders but with the upcoming Mar 11 polls, allegations of gender discrimination have come up against the panels the student fronts that announced their panels recently.

There are only 25 female aspirants for the upcoming DUCSU polls and only three of them are candidates for top posts like the vice president (VP), general secretary (GS) and assistant general secretary (AGS).

Many claim that several perfectly qualified women were deprived of nominations which clearly showed that were being wrongly evaluated.

Meanwhile, former DUCSU leaders feel that not giving enough women to contest the student polls will eventually lead to a crisis in leadership of women.

“Bangladeshi women are advanced in many sectors. They have to flourish in the political sector as well,” Mahfuza Khanam, a former DUCSU vice president told Bangla Tribune.

“More female students are going to universities and it is more important than ever that DUCSU has women leadership to represent the students,” she said and added that the student organisations should’ve been mindful of it.

A Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) leader who was deprived of nomination said that most of the female students have been nominated on member posts.

“Chhatra League only has six female candidates and they are not part of the central posts,” said the leader, requesting anonymity and added that there was “discrimination” in terms of posts.

The BCL pick for the post of common room and cafeteria secretary and Begum Rokeya Hall President BM Lipi Akhter told Bangla Tribune that she had tried for tickets to the top three central posts but was turned down.

“I don’t know why they didn’t give it to me. We still haven’t been able to come out of a patriarchal mindset,” she said.

Lipi added that many worthy aspirants were deprived of nomination.

Bangladesh Chhatra Federation’s President Umme Habiba Benazir said that female students don’t feel safe entering politics.

“On the other hand the organisations don’t value female candidates,” she said and added that the scenario, however, was different with leftist bodies.

DU Women and Gender Studies grad student Sheikh Sadia Afreen Shafi said that the main reason behind women’s disinterest in politics stems from the lack of safety and society’s views on politics.

Dhaka University Mass Communication and Journalism Professor Dr Rubaiyat Ferdous said that women have a collective disinterest in politics as they are unable to break out of societal norms and politically empower themselves.

“Most of the times women think that despite studying in a progressive university,” she said.

Ferdous also observed that in the national polls itself, only eight percent of the women leaders were elected.

She further said that student politics has become “stigmatized” and the circle for women in politics was steadily becoming smaller.

“Even the RPO says that 33 percent of any committee and nomination should be female. However, even the Parliament doesn’t fulfil this quota,” she added.

The Chhatra League president was unavailable for comments on the matter.