Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi took to twitter on Sunday to reach out to the youth and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of “destroying their future”.
“Dear Youth of India, Modi and Shah have destroyed your future. They can’t face your anger over the lack of jobs and damage they’ve done to the economy. That’s why they are dividing our beloved India and hiding behind hate. We can only defeat them by responding with love towards every Indian,” Mr. Gandhi tweeted.
The spontaneous protests by students against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) across the country has offered an opportunity for the Opposition to reach out to the youth who have decisively voted in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party in the past two Lok Sabha elections.
Youth voter base
In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Election Commission data showed that of 81.5 crore voters, as many as 2.3 crore were in the age group of 18-19 years. And this constituency of first time voters is believed to have played a crucial role in powering the BJP to the Centre.
Congress leaders seem to have started a calibrated campaign in a bid to reclaim this segment. Last Friday, party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, along with her teenage daughter, joined a group of student protesters at Delhi’s India Gate.
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, too, has taken up the issue of action against students of Jamia Milia Islamia University by Delhi Police and petitioned President Ram Nath Kovind on December 17 to intervene.
“We are anguished at the manner in which the police have dealt with peaceful demonstrations across India. We have the example in Delhi where the police entered the Jamia Women’s Hostel and dragged women students out,” Ms Gandhi had said after meeting President Kovind.
But many have questioned if the Congress' response has been somewhat muted and why Chief Ministers of Congress-ruled States like Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan or Punjab have not hit the streets to mobilise people as done by Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
Former party chief Rahul Gandhi too was missing from all the action as he away in South Korea for a programme of the Overseas Congress.
Conspicuous absence
Veterans also pointed out that the student and youth wing of the Congress failed to give leadership to the current protests as they did during the Mandal Commission agitation against the V.P. Singh government in 1990-91.
“It is the Congress that was at the forefront against the CAA in both Lok Sabha as well as Rajya Sabha. The Congress is also part of the people's protests but we don't want to hijack them. It's not about politics but about saving the Constitution,” former Union minister Manish Tewari clarified to The Hindu .
Mr. Tewari said the current protests are also a manifestation of the latent anger against the Modi government for not fulfilling election promises like creating 10 crore jobs in five years and economic progress. And that is a development his party is mindful of as it prepares to take on the Union government.
“The CAA protests have provided the students a platform to articulate this larger anger under the banner of Save the Constitution campaign,” he said.
