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Student volunteers find strong Pune link in Bihar polls
Student leaders from Pune are campaigning in Bihar
As part of the political campaigning during the Bihar assembly polls, political parties are raising the issue of job opportunities in Pune and its surrounding areas. As similar opportunities are lacking in Bihar, due to what these workers call, a failure of government, many from various districts, such as Katihar, have migrated to Pune.
“We have come to Bihar on October 28 to support our candidates contesting the elections. My responsibility here is to campaign for our candidate Tauquir Alam from Pranpur constituency in Katihar district. I go door to door and take corner sabhas to get the maximum votes. I also look after social media campaigning and the news publicity for our candidate,” said Satish Gore, a student leader from Pune and Maharashtra state secretary of the Indian National Youth Congress.
Talking about his experience about campaigning, Gore said, “Specifically in Katihar there are lot of labourers from here who come to Pune and Mumbai in search of work. Now they have returned to their villages due to lockdown and also for the elections. The lack of jobs in Bihar is now a poll issue.”
According to Gore, there is the major connect between Pune and Katihar district, with many Bihari voters fluently speaking Marathi, which was a surprise for him.
“It was easy for me to talk with them and place our agenda in front of them. One of the major demands is about creating job opportunities in their own district. They don’t want to travel to other places in search of work. People who have come back to Bihar after leaving their work in Pune are struggling to survive,” he added.
Another student leader, Vaibhav Parwat, who is a volunteer of the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in Pune, was in Bihar for a month to study the elections. He said, “I was in Bihar to study the election and what are expectations of Bihar citizens from the political parties. There is a strong connect between Bihar and Pune which I realised during my tenure there.”
“Another major issue is about the flood affected parts of the state. People feel nothing has been done to resolve this long-pending issue. There is good production of agricultural goods, but compared to Maharashtra there is not much development in the industrial sector. So, a majority prefer to come to Pune and other cities in Maharashtra in search of work,” Parwat added.
