2019 Lok Sabha polls: Young voters in Bhopal want income-based reservation

BHOPAL: There are at least seven government and private colleges within a 6-km radius of Bhopal’s Char Imli area — home to Madhya Pradesh’s key ministers and bureaucrats. A vast majority of students at these educational institutes, between the ages of 17 and 21, are not forthcoming about the political state of India. The dates of their annual examinations have been announced; the upcoming assembly election is the last thing on their mind.

“But we are excited about voting for the first time,” says Muskan Tiwari, an architecture student at Bhopal’s Polytechnic College. Tiwari turned 18 a few months ago and got her voter ID card last week. She doesn’t have high hopes from the political leaders. “They are all corrupt and think only about themselves.”


In an ideal world, though, she would like to have a political leader who “provides everyone with equal employment opportunities, initiates income-based reservation, as opposed to the current caste-based system, and ensures no Vijay Mallyas get away after looting the people of their hard-earned money.”

Most political parties rely on their employment schemes to lure the youth vote bank. Jobs, while an important issue, is not the only thing voters want. “I want a leader who also focusses on cleanliness, takes a clear stand on the issue of reservation and walks the talk,” says Shivansh Dubey, a 22-year-old computer science student of Jawahar Lal Nehru College in Bhopal.

The BJP, the ruling party in the state since 2003, understands first-time voters can’t be won on the back of job promises alone. Party general secretary VD Sharma talks of youth-centric schemes like the Medhavi Chatra Yojana (full scholarship to meritorious students), Yuva Udyami Yojana (loans to set up SMEs) and Coffee with CM (a platform for youngsters to talk development with the chief minister).

He is confident these will ensure positive response among first-time voters. “College students want a good environment to study. They want hostels, libraries and sports. We have promoted a good culture of education throughout the state and they appreciate it,” he says.




Meanwhile, the Opposition party is banking on the Youth Congress and the party’s IT cell to engage first-time voters across 51 districts, says Sachin Yadav, 36, a Congress MLA from the Kasrawad constituency. “Both at booth level and through social media, party members will share Congress’ vision for youth.” Condemning the ruling party’s defamatory language against the Opposition, Yadav says his party will focus on what it can offer firsttime voters, instead of bringing the other party down.

Reservation in the education system is the biggest grouse of these first-time voters, an issue both the parties avoid commenting on. “The SCs and STs (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) get a lot of benefits in every field, irrespective of their economic state, which is often better than ours. They’ll get admission even with 45% marks. But the general category students won’t get through even with 65%,” says Parv Tilang, a 21-year-old student of film-making at Polytechnic College. “Every topic is given a religious twist somehow. If Pakistan does something unwelcoming, Indian Muslims are targeted,” adds Abu Bakar, a 19-year-old BBA student of a private college in the city.

The other big issue for them is inflation. “Our generation doesn’t earn an income yet but we do have expenses. When petrol prices go up, it hits us terribly,” says Tilang. Inflation affects poor people the most, says Sangeeta Bansal, 21, a zoology student at Bhopal’s Nutan College. Her father, a labourer, is the sole bread-winner in a family of five and makes Rs 7,500 a month. “Earlier, my family would get sugar and kerosene from ration shops. But that has suddenly stopped. The rice they give is not adequate for us, sometimes it is contaminated with pebbles,” she says.

Bansal says the ruling party has done tremendous work to provide higher education to girls like her. The impact of inflation has made it difficult for her to decide who to vote for during the assembly elections later this year. This will be the first time she’ll vote. She wants to make it count.