The Electoral Office is using an attractive ad campaign to the tune of Rab Ne Banadi Jodi?s popular song, Dance pe chance maar le, with the lyrics Aaja pappu vote daal le, to get the young to go and vote. Getting more youth to vote was a process started by then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, who more than twenty years ago, pushed a constitutional amendment to lower the voting age from 21 to 18, which at the time would extend voting rights to 50 million more people. The amendment was passed successfully in parliament and today, according to the election office, in Delhi alone there are 4,03,914 youth in the age group of 18 to 19 and 35,72,485 in the age of 20 to 29 registered to vote, of a total of 111 lakh citizens in Delhi who are registered. 18-year-olds, including student voters thus constitute about 3.6% of the total registered voters from Delhi.

The electoral office of Delhi, going by the 60% turnout for the Vidhan Sabha elections in November, is optimistic that a similar if not better show will happen on May 7. Recently Satbir Silas Bedi, chief election officer of Delhi in a meeting with all vice-chancellors urged them to encourage students to vote although the date falls in the middle of university exams.

Confident about students? commitment to vote but weary about voting decisions, Madhulika Banerjee, reader in politics at Delhi university says, ?Our system is so examination-focused that starting from the school level students are encouraged to focus on Class 12 performance and think about other things once they have cleared the hurdle of this critical board exam. Unfortunately it does not stop there, continuing into the college level thus hampering the capacity of young people to think which also tells on their political decisions?. At the school level, political history is entirely excluded from students? curriculum. Recently, NCERT had to quarrel to introduce a course on the history of politics in the curriculum, as students are clueless about the history of political parties in India. 2007 school students of politics may not be aware of the 2002 Gujarat massacre. ?Current election discussions refer to the third front as if they are an invention of this election. Where as the ideology of the third front was established during the emergency when it believed that democracy was being violated?, says Banerjee.

Parents and familial political allegiance play a role in student voting decisions since these are imbibed in them since the age of nine or ten during dining table discussions. Rishabh Prakash, president of DU South Campus Students Union and a masters student of business economics says within his peer group, students are mostly attached to the same party and ideology as their parents and will make their voting decision as such. Of the 1,000-plus students in south campus, Prakash is confident that more than 90% will go to vote.

Nirvick Chhajta, a second year Shriram College of Commerce (SRCC) student agrees that different mediums provide different insight and whereas on television one sees figures of authority being questioned this perspective of the other side is not always evident in print. Chhajta will admitting to parental influence says he stands by his own belief that secularism is vital to the survival of any democracy.

Ridhi Kapur a second year economics student of Lady Shriram college (LSR) adds that ?Today?s youth reason out and question everything.

Sometimes we do find that it difficult to separate the candidate from the party and may vote for a candidate who isn?t a favourite but out of allegiance to the party. With an independent, one can be more objective about a candidate?s education, track record etc and independents such as Meera Sanyal of Bombay have a cleaner reputation in terms of the financial disclosures they make than the candidates of larger political parties?.

Minority justice and communalism are areas of uncertainty for first time student voters as they find it difficult to isolate the issue from the individual. For instance during a class discussion on Ambedkar, students in a classroom refused to even acknowledge knowing their own caste. This is the case more with bigger city students than with students from Bihar and UP who realise that caste plays a role for an empirical understanding of India. Students feel a teacher?s political influence lies to the extent of giving context to curriculum in subjects, especially in subjects such as economics and history than in the sciences. When asked to compare with her peer group in interior and rural parts, Ridhi acknowledges that although of the same age group their issues are very different and they are much more dependent than urban counterparts on government for health care, education and employment. This election because of the Internet students also seem to play a role in advocacy. A lot of students she knows would not have voted but for sites such as jagora.com, says Natasha Bhadha a student of BMCC College in Pune as, ?These sites walk students through every step of registration whereas going to the electoral office in Pune is a deterrent as officials speak only in the regional language and people who don?t speak the language find it difficult to get their registration done?.

Social networking site, Facebook reportedly has up to 100 groups encouraging people to vote. Bilal Ahmed, a SRCC student and president of the Delhi chapter of an international students association called aiesec says their association itself has partnered with associations such as the iPledge campaign on Facebook to encourage the peer group to cast their vote.

?Citizens should also be offered an option of ?voting in favour of no candidate?, thus demonstrating that though a sense of responsibility made them vote they have no confidence in any of the candidates and if the number of these votes adds up to more than any of the candidates then there should be a re-election?, says Aditi Dalmia, a second year economics student of LSR.

?malvika.chandan@expressindia.com