London: With some 40,000 Indian students studying in UK universities, a campaign has been launched to encourage them to vote for next month's General Election.

As Commonwealth citizens, Indian students temporarily based in the country for their studies are eligible to vote in the British parliamentary elections.

The National Indian Students Union (NISU) UK has launched an election campaign 'My Vote Matters' to encourage an estimated 40,000 student population to exercise their franchise.

"Most Commonwealth students do not realise that they have the legal right to vote in the UK parliamentary elections.

"Many of our members and the wider community we represent belong to this section and given the recent negative immigration policies it is more important than ever before for these students to come out and vote," said NISU UK president Sanam Arora.

The 'My Vote Matters' campaign centres around creating awareness of voting rights and the process of voter registration via social media and Twitter with the hashtag #myvotematters that helps them make the best choice on May 7.

"It is sad that neither the Tories nor Labour have thus far come out explicitly and said anything about international students in particular," said Arora.

"Among the key demands put forward by NISU UK is the right to a period of post-study work visa for all foreign students at graduate and post-graduate level and their exclusion from all further political debate on reducing net migration figures into the UK.
"The whole of the government needs to recognise and celebrate the financial, cultural and intellectual value of international students to the UK," the group said in its statement.

Their demands finds widespread support with UK universities and business leaders, who have demanded that overseas students must be excluded from the country's net migration targets.

According to statistics released earlier this year by the UK's Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), Indian students studying at British universities had registered a 12 per cent drop from the previous year to 19,750.

It reflected an extremely concerning fall from 39,090 during the peak period of 2010-2011.

"Short-term post-study work opportunities for skilled international graduates are important in helping to fill specific skills gaps and ensuring that UK businesses and other organisations remain globally competitive," said Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of Universities UK.

A British Council study had also found that Indians are already choosing US universities over the UK due to strict visa norms on post-study work.