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Catch them while they’re young: Congress set to woo first time voters for mission 2019

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According to an internal party report, the 2019 Lok Sabha election is expected to see an estimated 15 crore first-time voters, and the Congress has been brainstorming about how to woo them.

New Delhi: Heading into its first general election under a new, “young” president, the Congress has begun working on a campaign with the young at its heart.

According to an internal party report, the 2019 Lok Sabha election is expected to see an estimated 15 crore first-time voters aged between 18 and 23 exercise their franchise, and the Congress has been brainstorming on how to woo them.

The planned outreach initiatives, tailored to issues concerning different states, include interactive sessions to address youth grievances in Karnataka, postcards to emphasise poor mobile connectivity in remote Chhattisgarh areas, and boot camps led by senior Congress leaders.

Set to play a major role in this initiative is the party’s student wing, the National Students Union of India (NSUI).

The maths of youth

The Congress believes first-time voters played a crucial role in the BJP’s victory in 2014.

According to Election Commission data, there were 11.72 crore new voters in 2014 out of a total of 83.41 crore.

Although it is difficult to estimate how many of the new voters chose the BJP, it is believed the party won the support of a bigger chunk than any of its rivals.

It was recently reported that Congress president Rahul Gandhi drew a lukewarm response from the young in poll-bound Karnataka, which suggests the party needs to put in some work to present itself as a viable alternative to the youth.

On 1 May, Sam Pitroda, party strategist and chairman of Overseas Congress, met Rahul with a blueprint for their outreach programme.

“Any party in today’s time needs youth voters to be with them and we are working on it,” Pitroda told ThePrint.

While that is yet to be finalised, here are the other initiatives the party is rolling out.

Karnataka

In Karnataka, the party estimates the number of first-time voters at anywhere between 55 and 70 lakh, translating to 15,000 to 30,000 per constituency.

“There is a general complaint among the youth that they are not taken seriously by any political party,” said Ruchi Gupta, AICC joint secretary and in-charge of the NSUI.

“That’s why we started a Town Hall campaign across Karnataka’s cities with the theme ‘We are listening’,” she added.

As part of these sessions, which started in January, students and youths were invited for no-holds-barred interactions with young Congress leaders from the state, including MLA and state Congress working president Dinesh Gundu Rao, and state ministers Priyank Kharge and Krishna Byre Gowda.

A 100 such town halls were planned, but the party stopped holding them once the election dates were announced as leaders got busy with their campaign.

Rajasthan

In BJP-led Rajasthan, due to go to the polls at the end of the year, the party will start its campus outreach in June, when the new academic session starts and freshers arrive. Education, health and jobs will be the pivots of the programme.

Chhattisgarh

In Chhattisgarh, also set for elections at the same time as Rajasthan and currently led by a BJP administration, the NSUI will start a postcard campaign next week.

Under the campaign, NSUI leaders will travel to different districts and pose a question among the young: Have you seen ‘vikas’ in your district? Vikas, or development, is the BJP’s main poll plank. If the respondents reply in the negative, they will be asked to write a postcard to the chief minister with one question: Where is vikas?

The initiative lends itself to questions about the point of using postcards, an old-world medium of communication many youngsters may not even have heard of, to bolster youth outreach. But Congress leaders say the obsolescence is the essence.

“Internet and mobile penetration in Chhattisgarh is too low and, barring one or two districts, people are not well connected like in other states. That’s why we have decided to use postcards,” Gupta said.

The party is yet to come up with a strategy for Madhya Pradesh, another BJP-ruled state due to vote with Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

The national picture

Also on the cards are four-week ‘boot camps’, a first, to foster in-depth understanding of the “politics behind policies” through interactive sessions with senior Congress leaders.

The first one is slotted for June, and applications for the ‘Future of India’ fellowship have already been issued. Another is likely in the winter.

“It is a programme especially targeted to promote youth leadership and visions and we are looking at motivated and dedicated youngsters,” said Gupta.

The selected candidates will be mentored on a range of subjects, for example on the budget by former finance minister P. Chidambaram; on urban development by former union minister Ajay Maken; on politics by Sachin Pilot; and on the telecom revolution by one of its torchbearers, Sam Pitroda.

The idea is to give the participants holistic information about politics and policy, and talk about the Congress legacy in different fields.

There are also plans to conduct Karnataka-like town halls in different parts of the country, and training programmes for grassroots leaders and workers.

“We will come up with more such programmes in the coming months,” Pitroda said.

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