Why Are Rajasthan’s Youths Protesting at the Congress’s Lucknow Office?

Unemployed youths have claimed that 46 days of protests in Rajasthan’s Jaipur have gone unheeded.

Lucknow: The office of Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee in the Mall Avenue area of Lucknow is buzzing with action. With assembly elections due early next year, ticket-seekers and supporters of party leaders do frequent the office. But for the last three days, there’s been a different group of people thronging the party premises – the unemployed youth of Rajasthan.

Why should Rajasthan’s youth throng the Congress office in Lucknow when the party is not in power in UP?

“Because the Ashok Gehlot government in Rajasthan is not heeding our demands,” explains Upen Yadav, president of the Unified Unemployed Federation. “We have come here to request Priyanka Gandhi to order the chief minister to fulfil our demands.”

Priyanka Gandhi is the All India Congress Committee general secretary in charge of UP.

The unemployed youth, Yadav added, staged a protest in Jaipur for nine days, starting February 15. “Two ministers – Subhash Garg and Rajendra Yadav – came to the protest site and made an agreement in writing that their government would fulfil our demands within a month. It’s been more than a month now and the demands are still unfulfilled,” he said.

These youths campaigned against the Congress during the assembly by-elections in Rajasthan last month.

“The chief minister met us in April and assured us that the demands would be accepted soon. Sure enough, some of them were fulfilled but 15 of the demands remain unfulfilled,” Yadav said.

“We started a protest in Jaipur from October 14 to press for these 15 demands. Even after 46 days of protest, the government did not act on the demands so we decided to come to Lucknow for a demonstration,” the youth leader said. In Lucknow, Yadav alleged, the Congress workers misbehaved with them.

“We will not leave Lucknow until our demands are fulfilled,” he said.

The 15 demands include a law to make the leaking of exam papers a non-bailable offence, biometric attendance at examination centres and for recruitment exams to be held under the watch of cameras. Other demands include advertisements for recruitment to various posts, increasing vacancies, early appointments, priority to the unemployed of the state by reducing the quota of other states and allotting examination centres in the home districts of candidates in recruitment examinations.

Also read: Rajasthan: Cheating, Paper Leaks in Govt Exams Put Aspirants’ Lives at Stake

This is not the first time unemployed youth of Rajasthan have gone to UP. In July this year, a three-member delegation met Gandhi to demand the regular recruitment of computer teachers instead of taking them on contract. After this meeting, the state government acceded to their demand. The youth hope that the same will happen this time.

The Rajasthan government had even made efforts to prevent the youth from going to Lucknow. Congress MLA Danish Abrar, who was recently appointed as an adviser to the chief minister, went to the protest site in Jaipur on November 22 and assured the youth that the government would fulfil all of their demands within 48 hours. But when the demands were not fulfilled within this time frame, the youth reached Lucknow.

An official of the UP Congress, on the condition of anonymity, said that they had tried their best to make sure that the unemployed youth do not reach the Lucknow office, but they went anyway. “Due to this agitation, we are being looked down upon. This is bad publicity for the party at a time when it is trying to put up a brave fight in the state elections,” he added.

BJP’s role

BJP has been quick to capitalise on this demonstration. Former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje, state BJP president Satish Poonia, leader of the opposition in the state Gulab Chand Kataria and Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat have all accused the Gehlot government of mistreating the unemployed youth.

“When the Congress government did not listen to the youth sitting on protest in Jaipur for a month, the desperate youths have now reached Lucknow to seek justice from Priyanka Gandhi. The state government should not be rigid and should consider their demands,” Raje said.

Meanwhile, chief minister Gehlot accused BJP of provoking the unemployed youth. Talking to reporters at the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee office in Jaipur on Sunday, he said, “The BJP is provoking them. What is the point of going to Lucknow? The BJP’s fortunes are sinking everywhere. In the Rajasthan by-elections held on two seats, BJP candidates lost their deposits. Party candidates faced defeat in Himachal Pradesh too. In the UP elections, the party is propping the youth for its ulterior motives.”

“They are members of our family. Rajasthan is getting maximum employment. A hundred thousand people have already got jobs and recruitment on 77,000 posts is under way. The youth need to prepare for these recruitment tests instead of staging a sit-in. Those who do not study, they have come to protest. Some of the agitating unemployed have a desire to contest elections. They are already in the race for tickets from political parties,” Gehlot said.

Although Gehlot did not name any leader, his words have been construed as an indirect reference to Yadav.

In turn, Yadav said that if the government accepted their demands, he was ready to give it in writing that he will never contest elections from any party. “When the BJP was in power and we used to agitate, the government used to accuse the Congress of instigating us. Now the Congress is doing the same for the BJP. Only the party in opposition seems to care for the unemployed youths in Rajasthan,” he added.