‘No educated person will vote for the BJP. What is the point of studying if we do not get jobs?’
After eight years of trying to find a government job, this young man from Jhanjharpur in Bihar has lost faith in Modi.
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The Bharatiya Janata Party and Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 on the promise of bringing “achhe din” – prosperous days – for Indians. But the last decade has brought formidable challenges for vast sections of Indians, especially those at the bottom of the pyramid. What is on the mind of voters who are struggling with joblessness and income insecurity? Will they still vote for Narendra Modi? Or is their enchantment with the party fading? Scroll reporters find out in a new series, No achhe din, but…
The Musallahpur Hat locality in Patna is a maze of bylanes dotted by coaching institutes and lodges, where thousands of young men shack up as they prepare to write recruitment exams that qualify them for government jobs.
The classrooms are cramped and the lodges dingy. Mithilesh Kumar, 31, a Musallahpur resident since 2016, likens his decision to come to Patna from his hometown of Jhanjharpur in Bihar’s Madhubani district to entering a “surang” – a tunnel – with the hope that a government job was waiting for him at the end of it.
He uses the same metaphor for having voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. “The difference is I still hope...
