Kolkata: This year, the air around elections seem more polarising than ever and yet the primary concern for youth in West Bengal is the lack of employment. Allegations of corruption against the ruling Trinamool Congress are coupled with fears over a communal future should the Bharatiya Janata Party come to power.Although the state government has promised schemes like the Yuva Saathi, dubbed the “unemployment payout,” which provides a monthly sum of Rs 1,500 to educated and unemployed youth, those waiting for jobs continue to question the TMC government.Campus politics is on the roil as well, especially after the rape and murder of a 31-year-old postgraduate resident physician at R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital and the rape of a law student at a south Kolkata college by a TMC leader.In addition to all of this is the issue of the Bengal special intensive revision of electoral rolls, which finds young voters as much at sea as older ones.Stanshila Mardy, a resident of Bandel who has just completed her Masters from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, says that since she is has been living outside of West Bengal along with her brother for the past two years, their names have been removed from the voter lists. “People from the BJP have been frequenting our place and telling us that that they will help us out but hardly anything is coming out of filing official complaints and frequenting government offices responsible for the voter lists,” she says.For Sahana Mitra, a Masters student from the department of English at Jadavpur University, the TMC’s role in opposing the SIR has not been enough. “The TMC has been vocal about SIR since the beginning, but being a bourgeoise party, it cannot be an actual opponent of either the SIR or BJP’s agenda in West Bengal.”Amit Hasan a third-year philosophy student at Subhas Chandra Bose Centenary College, Murshidabad says, “These are not very suitable times to hold elections when most people cannot even exercise their right to vote due to their names being deleted. People in my area are in a constant fear of being sent into detention camps just after elections.” Murshidabad has had some of the highest deletions in Bengal.Students across campuses in the state have also been fighting for their own causes like academic freedom, campus security and infrastructure.Also read: Most Bengal Colleges Have Not Had Elections in Years. Yet the TMC ‘Controls’ Student UnionsSonami Baski a first year English student at Purnidevi Chowdhury Girl’s College, Bolpur says, “It is hard to look at the crumbling infrastructure at my college and all the other neighbouring government colleges that go through the same negligence. Before elections parties come and offer freebies to students and forget about us later on, so I do not really understand the difference between BJP and TMC.”Kouishikee Guha, a Sociology Masters student at Calcutta University who is also an activist of All India Students’ Association (AISA), the student body of Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, says, “We have seen how the BJP has unleashed its violence in campuses like JNU and DU and if the BJP is to come to power in Bengal as well, it would be very difficult for us to preserve our campus from the goon culture that BJP brings in under the garb of Hindutva”.Somsurya Banerjee a fourth year student of the department of electronics and telecommunication engineering at Jadavpur University, who is also a founding member of The Nationalist Student’s Front, a right-wing student organisation, strikes a different chord. He cites BJP’s example in he says, “If the BJP gains ground, it may realign college discourse. It would promote ideological diversity, increase democratic involvement, and create a more level playing field.”On April 24th, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a campaign meeting that Jadavpur University was a seat of “anarchy” where students gave out “anti-national slogans”. He seemed to suggest that it should be a seat of learning, and needed some degree of “saving”.This led to a curious moment in which chief minister Mamata Banerjee responded, defending JU students ability to question. She said, ““The students of Jadavpur University have earned their place through merit and walk out with degrees, with intellect, with the ability to question. That is not anarchy. That is education, and that is excellence.”Shankhodip Chakroborty a Bachelors student from the department of International relations at Jadavpur University, who is also a student activist of Democratic Students Front (Arts), speaks of the same fears. He says, “Our campus has been suffering from depoliticisation for the last six years. Since the University started in 2022 after two years of long lockdown, there have been no union elections. The last election took place in 2019”.Students across campuses have been fighting for students union elections to be conducted. Students have also been asking for a Gender Sensitisation Committees Against Sexual Harassment, anti-ragging cells, opportunities for jobs and higher education. Some, like Guha and Chakroborty, fear that their fight to save campus democracy might turn more difficult if the BJP comes to power.Amidst this, a large chunk of campus politics is led by the ideals of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which had been in power for 34 years until its defeat to TMC in 2011, and is desperately trying to revive its identity through grassroots mobilisation. While the CPI(M) is no longer a key player in Bengal politics, it remains to be seen how its role in campus politics evolves as a result of the elections this time.Ipil Baski is an editorial intern at The Wire.