Dhaka, Aug. 15 -- Towards the end of July, the highly anticipated date for elections to the Dhaka University Central Students' Union was announced, delivering on a key promise of the interim government to restart the culture of student politics centred around students' union elections at the country's leading public universities.

Accordingly DU will hold its first students' union election in 6 years on September 9. The final voter list containing 39,775 eligible voters, of which 20,871 are male and 18,902 are female, was published this week.

On August 8, the Dhaka University unit of the Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, the BNP's student wing, sparked controversy by announcing convening committees for 18 residential halls, despite widespread op...