How Congress & BJP are competing to woo youth in poll-bound MP — ‘IPL team’ to skill development

First-time voters form nearly 4% of Madhya Pradesh's total voting population. In an election that could come down to the wire, this young crowd could hold the key to victory.

Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath with his son and party MP Nakul Nath in Chhindwara | ANI

Bhopal: With just over a week to go before Madhya Pradesh votes, there’s one key demographic that both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition Congress hope will tilt things in their favour this year — the state’s young voters. 

According to the Election Commission of India, Madhya Pradesh’s young, or first-time, voters account for 22.36 lakh — nearly four percent — of the state’s total 5.6 crore voting population.

It’s this crowd that both the Congress and the BJP want to draw in. From the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government’s skill development programme to the Congress’s promise of an Indian Premier League (IPL) team, both parties have made a series of announcements in an attempt to appeal to the youth.

In the latest such pitch, Congress leader and Chhindwara MP Nakul Nath has invited name suggestions for the state’s promised IPL team.

“I have always focussed on sport and encouraged it. And I want to tell the youth of Madhya Pradesh, soon after the Congress government is formed in the state, we are going to form an IPL team for Madhya Pradesh,” Nath, son of former chief minister Kamal Nath, said in his video posted on X Tuesday.

He further said: “I want to appeal to all the youth of MP to suggest a name for the IPL team so that we can encourage the pride of MP in the field of cricket as well.”

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who held a Jan Sabha — or people’s court — at Sidhi in the state’s Vindhya Pradesh region the same day, urged the youth to help build a prosperous state.

“This responsibility falls particularly on our youth, aged 18-25. Today, each of your votes will determine the future of MP in the coming 25 years. Therefore, the lotus should bloom at every booth of Vindhya,” he said. 

Abbas Hafiz, the vice-chairman of Madhya Pradesh Congress’s media cell, told ThePrint that the party “recognises first-time voters” and that there has been a constant effort to reach them.  

“In our manifesto, we have emphasised several initiatives for the youth, whether it’s giving them priority in government jobs in the state, filling up pending vacancies, setting up a rozgar (employment) bureau or giving out cash rewards, cars, and priority in employment to meritorious sportspersons. On the other hand, under the BJP’s rule, there are 50 lakh unemployed youth registered with the government. But the actual number is much higher,” he said.

According to figures presented in the state assembly earlier this year, there were 38,92,949 unemployed youth in Madhya Pradesh.

On its part, the BJP hopes to fall back on the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi “as a symbol of development and nationalism” to appeal to first-time voters.

“I’ve always heard that the first vote is for Modi,” said the BJP’s state media in charge, Asish Aggarwal. “On the other hand, the Congress is asking (people) to vote for donation, nepotism, and corruption. Those who are getting the privilege to vote for the first time understand the power of a double-engine government, and they have witnessed the development in the country in the nine years of the Modi government.” 

But Yatindra Sisodia, professor and director at the Ujjain’s Madhya Pradesh Institute of Social Research, believes that despite such attempts to woo them, young voters are unlikely to vote as a single block. 

“It is true that owing to the long tenure of the BJP, young voters (see) politics and governance through its prism. And unemployment is (also) definitely a very big issue. But unlike certain voter blocks that move in favour of a particular party based on their caste, first-time voters are apolitical. It will vary from seat to seat, and an individual’s ideological inclination that they develop back at home,” said Sisodia.

Given their significant numbers, youth voters could play a key role in this election, which analysts believe is likely to go to the wires.

In 2018, the BJP’s vote share stood at 40.1 percent as compared to the Congress’s 40.9 percent vote share. Despite this marginally lower vote share, however, the Congress won 114 seats as against the BJP’s 109 and ended up forming the government.

Skill development programme, youth chaupals 

Last year, the Congress had set up the Bal Congress, a new unit meant to target youngsters aged between 16 and 20.

The party has also been targeting the state’s Shivraj Singh Chouhan government over the issue of unemployment in the state. Addressing a press conference last week, Congress MP and former Union minister Pradeep Aditya Jain promised to reduce the fees charged for government job recruitment exams in the state. He also claimed that while more than 1 crore youth in Madhya Pradesh were unemployed, only 40 lakh were registered with the government.

In October, former Chief Minister Kamal Nath wrote an open letter to first-time voters highlighting several of the BJP government’s “failures”. “Shivraj Singh Chouhan has failed in providing employment opportunities to the youth in Madhya Pradesh. The BJP has indulged in multiple scams,” said the letter, which the BJP dismissed as the Congress’s “latest drama”.

The BJP, meanwhile, has so far organised over 15,000 ‘Yuva Chaupals’, or youth meetings, across 23,000 village panchayats. It also periodically reminds the state’s youth of the alleged failures of successive Congress governments in the state — for instance, addressing a karyakarta mahakumbh in Bhopal this September, Modi reportedly warned that Madhya Pradesh would once again become a “BIMARU state” under the Congress rule. 

First coined in the 1980s by demographer Ashish Bose, ‘BIMARU’ is an acronym to refer to Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh. It’s used to imply that these states lagged in terms of vital indices such as economic growth, healthcare, and education. 

In August, the BJP government under CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan also rolled out the Mukhyamantri Seekho-Kamao Yojana’ — a skill development programme through which the government aims at targeting one lakh young people between ages 18 and 29 in 703 identified areas. 

Under this, those who have cleared Class 12 and trained under the programme will get a monthly stipend of Rs 8,000, those with certifications from Industrial Training Institutes will get Rs 8,500, diploma holders will get Rs 9,000 and those who have graduated or have a higher education qualification will get Rs 10,000 per month. 

The Congress’s Hafiz, quoted earlier, told ThePrint that his party had been trying to reach out to the youth and “urge them to question everything the BJP says instead of believing them blindly”. He also said that during the Congress’s 15-month rule between 17 December 2018 and 23 March 2020, Madhya Pradesh had the youngest cabinet. 

“Even in this election, over 50 young candidates have been given tickets,” he said. “This is a clear message to the youth that the Congress party is thinking of them and their welfare while the BJP is merely using their votes to remain in power.”

(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)