The voting marathon in India is now in its home stretch. The elections to the 16th Lok Sabha, staggered over nine phases in a period spanning five weeks, come to an end on May 12 with voting taking place in the remaining 41 seats of the 543-seat Lower House of Parliament.
Of the 41 seats where voters go to exercise their rights in the last and final phase, 35 are in strategically important states of Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, where the fate of some big-wigs would be decided. Again, some of them are pitted against each other in some of the constituencies.
The main focus would be on Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh where Narendra Modi, the BJP-alliance prime ministerial candidate, is being challenged by the leader of Aam Aadmi Party, Arvind Kejriwal. The other parties, including Congress, have not put any strong candidates in this seat. Modi, however, is also contesting from Vadodara in his home state Gujrat, where voting took place last month.
In West Bengal, world famous magician PC Sorcar Junior is contesting from Barasat as a BJP candidate against the sitting MP, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar of Trinamool Congress, while Junior Railway Minister Adhir Chowdhury of Congress is facing noted singer Indranil Sen who has been nominated by Trinamool Congress .
In the current election in India, there are a whopping 150 million voters between the ages of 18 and 23 who are eligible to vote for the first time. This number of young voters is almost equal to the population of Bangladesh and would equal, one might say, the voting population of many European countries taken together.
With the high turnout reported so far, many of them must have exercised their rights, and the question that is floating around the political arena is: Are the youth in India likely to shape the elections?
It has been seen in the past that the young voters in India have not been very keen or active about voting or bringing about significant changes in the electoral results. There have been few exceptions though. During the mid-70s when Indira Gandhi imposed emergency, the youth of the country played a pivotal role in the anti-emergency movement and the subsequent electoral defeat of Congress in 1977. That brought to power the first ever non-Congress government in India.
Again, in 1989, there was a massive youth support in favour of VP Singh who became prime minister. But analysts say these were unusual circumstances and there is no evidence that in elections held for the last five Lok Sabhas of en bloc youth support for any particular party or alliance. It is, however, believed that in 1999, BJP won more youth votes, helping it to emerge as the largest party in the Lok Sabha. It is now being suggested that the huge proportion of youth voters could have an impact on the results of the current election.
Let us, first of all, look at these new 150 million new young voters of India. We must remember that this is a generation born in the post-1990 era of economic liberalisation. Political observers say they are not too bothered about ideologies, nor do they think that events such as the destruction of Babri Masjid in 1991 are of any significance today.
A recent survey shows that the Indian youth today give more credence to matters like corruption, inflation, unemployment, education, and the safety of women. In the recent past, a large number of youths had protested corruption and the Delhi gang-rape case.
The way that the Congress-led alliance government has been embroiled in corruption scandals, like 2G and Coalgate to name a couple, and the youth’s preference regarding job opportunities and their craving for change have led analysts to believe that this time round, the BJP would benefit from the youth vote, as they did in 1999.
BJP firmly believes that their commitment of economic reform and job opportunities would woo young voters, while Congress thinks that their leader Rahul Gandhi’s youth and their tradition of pluralism and secularism will bring the youth to their side. On the other hand, Aam Aadmi Party, which was formed in 2012 with a pledge to fight corruption and bring about transparency and accountability, is also expecting to get significant support from young voters.
In another recent survey, it has been found that the fate of candidates in as many as 160 seats of the Lok Sabha, that is more than a quarter of the House, could be influenced by social media users. The young generation uses these social media tools the most, and, in a frantic effort to get these voters in their fold, all the major parties are heavily using these as their campaign tool. Even the Communist Party of India, CPI (M) has set up a special cell at their Alimuddin Street headquarters in Kolkata.
Use of social media is heavy and extreme, opined an analyst, adding that even friends are at war with each other. One section of the youth would go with the “Modi wave” as they think he can deliver the goods. The other section would be split between regional parties and Aam Aadmi Party. It is also said that the projection of Aam Aadmi Party bagging around 10 to 12 seats is based on their support from the youth. The Congress Party is not likely to fare well with the young voters as they are thought to be disenchanted with the various corruption scandals during the present government’s tenure and it’s inability to handle the economy properly. Poll observers believe that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra should have been brought into the Congress campaign trail much earlier to spearhead their campaign as she is perceived to be more efficient and better positioned to attract young voters. She, in some form, is the “Indira.”
The youth of India certainly seems to have a very large impact on the current elections, but it must be borne in mind that they are not monolithic and so their voting patterns may differ depending on factors like their background, location, and priorities.
The Indian urban youth definitely want a change. Either they toe the Aam Aadmi Party anti-corruption line, or are moved by BJP’s propaganda of strong government. It certainly does not look good for Congress as far as youth voters are concerned.