Apathy, indifference or disconnect: Why is India's youth staying away from Elections?

Hello and welcome to Dance of Democracy Season 24. As we complete the second phase of polling, it’s worth asking is India’s you not interested in its own future? We will get to that in a bit. But before that, what if we told you 2020 lovers and believers are in the fray this election? Indian Believers, National Tigers, Indian Lovers 2020. These are not names of some sports teams but political parties that are vying for our attention and vote. With names like these, it is easy to get attention. But votes? That’s a different story altogether. Election Commission recognizes these parties as registered, unrecognized political parties which often do not last for one election. Also, within five years of their registration, they need to contest for an election or they automatically get deregistered. When it comes to names, some are quite literal, such as Sabse Apti Party or AAP Ki Apni Party from up. Some others take it a notch higher such as Beer on Ki Veer Party, High Tech Party or the Pyramid Party of India Plural Party claims to follow Kantian philosophy for Bihars Karthe Ki Thakkar. So if these names were the basis of votes, which party is most likely to get your attention? Is India’s youth not interested in India’s future? As harsh as it sounds, why is it that a majority of freshly minted 18 year olds are giving this election a miss? We took the question to youngsters who do some plain speaking on why they feel their vote isn’t valued. They are part of party manifestos, they are part of promo videos and they are certainly part of India’s future. Why then are they not part of India’s voting exercise? As the world’s largest democracy picks its next government, there’s a gaping hole in one category of voters. As per the Election commissions numbers, just one point 8,00,00,000 voters have registered to vote in this category of first time voters. That’s just 38%. Given that the projected number of youngsters eligible to vote is in the range of 4.9 crore, when you breakdown the data even further, Bihar and Delhi are at the bottom of the pile. States like Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra that send the highest number of legislators to Parliament are also languishing at the lower end of the stack. So is it apathy, A discontent from political discourse? Or are youngsters disillusioned by what’s on offer voting but politicians interested? Those are not the only complaints from youngsters. Many are also appalled at how easily netas become turncoats with almost no consequence or accountability. Ki Maharashtra Ki political crisis deke hai is my political party parties. Be it the pawars or the takres, there is a lot of furry bore in Maharashtra politics, Swati here explains. For Supriya, Surrey, the family feud is real. While she faces Suneetra Pawar, her cousin Ajit Pawar’s wife in to retain Baramati seat, that’s not it for the Pawar family. Suneetra Pawar’s cousin Rana Ranjit Singh’s wife Archana is pitted against their relative Omraja Nimbharkar in Usmanabad. In Satara, the royal cousins do not see eye to eye. BJP candidate Udayan Raje is trying to win over his cousin Shivendra Raje, but old scars are difficult to heal. Once again, the Thakre cousins are on the opposite sides of the battle by there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes to bring out every day’s newspaper edition. The smallest updates can fully flip a finished edition. Arun Ram tells us how the Chennai Bureau tackled one such change when Tamil Nadu voted on April 19th. What do you say when half a city doesn’t go to vote? Well, we called it Shame Chennai. Well, that was the headline. We ran on April 20th, the day after Tamil Nadu went to polls. So we decided to go with Shame Chennai. But there is a story behind that headline that is not the headline which we had. And at 7730, the reporter comes in and says the state election officers had revised the numbers from 69% to 72%. And Chennai, mind you, had pulled 67%, which is a phenomenal rise from its original. So we thought that kind of upset our planning and some people were sad that a smart headline as we thought with the same Chennai may not work. But then it was good news. So we decided to go with Sabash Chennai. We had the page set with Sabar Chennai patting Chennai on the back and that was the headline we were ready to go to bed with at 12:00. But then around 12:30, the Election Commission of India again jolted us out of a bed with a revised number. This again showed that the number has come down. We had to dig deeper, analyse. But all these things had to be done within an extended deadline of about 30 to 40 minutes. Our editorial team took up the challenge and decided to go with option B. That is to redo everything. Virtually everything, from our headlines to the graphics, to our stories, our leads, everything. And that was done in 45 minutes. And then we went back to shame Chennai. And now for a quick political quiz. Even before counting day, BJP has already won a seat. Tell us the name of the winner and how did this happen even before votes were cast? The election story of India is incomplete without The Times of India. Every morning, our 51 editions not only provide most extensive coverage of elections, they also discover an India that’s unseen and unknown.