The Tribhuvan University’s Student Welfare Council on Thursday proposed to the university’s executive committee to hold the Free Student Union elections on March 19.

Pashupati Adhikari, chief of the council, said the date was proposed based on suggestions from the student unions. Adhikari said the election date was pushed beyond the schedule mentioned in the educational calendar of the university due to the winter holidays and Holi festival among other reasons.

The university’s executive committee will formally announce the schedule for the elections that will be held after a hiatus of six years.

The biennial elections haven’t been held since 2017. In the elections five years back, voting couldn’t take place in more than 35 constituent campuses and some 100 community colleges following differences among student unions and incidents of violence. It was only in 2009 that the elections were held across the country.

Starting in 2017, the varsity has adopted a mixed electoral system that would allow equal division of seats between those elected through the proportional and first-past-the-post systems. Only those students below 28 years can take part in voting.

In addition to 61 constituent colleges, the university administration wants to conduct the elections in its 1,040 affiliated colleges—both the community and private.

Though the affiliated community colleges, in addition to the constituent campuses, have been holding the elections, the private ones haven’t held such elections.