The Jammu and Kashmir voter who is fighting corruption in job recruitments

What do young Indians who voted for the first time in 2014 think about the past decade? Scroll reporters find out in The Modi Generation.

As a first-time voter in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Vinkal Sharma voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate from Udhampur in Jammu and Kashmir.

Sharma’s key reason for voting for the party in 2014 was his disillusionment with the ruling Congress-led United Progressive Alliance at the Centre. “I wasn’t voting for them due to ideological reasons,” said Sharma, who is now 29. “But like many other Indians, I wasn’t okay with how public money was being embezzled by the UPA II government. I was impressed by the BJP’s thrust on issues like corruption and black money.”

He also had an earlier affinity for the party, having been groomed into student politics through the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Sharma explained that he was largely satisfied with the first term of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, and chose to vote for it again in 2019. “The NDA’s first tenure was not that bad,” he said. “I thought, let’s give them another chance to deliver.”

But, in his view, the second term left much to be desired. “Larger problems like unemployment were...

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