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Journalism of Courage
On December 24, 2022, 22-year-old Sonu Sharma rushed to appear for the general knowledge paper of a teacher recruitment examination conducted by the Rajasthan Public Service Commission (RPSC).
“The government had made bus travel free for students who were appearing but then the public buses did not let us in at all. So we had to climb (the buses), hitch a ride … the sole aim being to reach the centre in time any way possible,” says Sharma, standing alongside a group of youngsters underneath a tree in the middle of Shahpura’s Devan village, about 90 minutes north-west of Jaipur.
For every examination, it was the same story for Sonu. And for the GK paper, he somehow reached the centre in time. Then came the shock: “After reaching the centre we got to know that the paper had been leaked and thus cancelled,” he says. For this particular examination, 3.9 lakh persons had registered.
Since 2019, eight examinations conducted by the RPSC have had to be cancelled due to paper leaks. This has led to at least 15 FIRs and the arrest of at least 273 persons. For cheating, 160 more FIRs were filed in the same period. However, the scale of the number of people affected is more accurately gauged from the number of registrations for these eight examinations: 33,31,698, although several people register for multiple exams.
During this period, there was a single, most credible voice from among the youth themselves who championed their cause, and campaigned against the “paper mafia” and the never-ending court cases — 33-year-old Upen Yadav.
So, when Yadav’s cavalcade rolls into Devan, Sonu Sharma says he will vote for Yadav, who the BJP has fielded from Shahpura. A small crowd of party workers and locals receive and greet him even as his supporters hand out a pamphlet to rekindle their memory. It states that in 11 years and 8 months, Yadav led 300 campaigns and 12 hunger strikes. “He has devoted a third of his 33 years to the unemployed,” the pamphlet proclaims. On the back, there are images from his protests: his bloodied forehead, on the hospital bed, sleeping on the road, police forcibly taking him into custody, and sitting inside a police van.
As Yadav hops on the cemented chabutra around the tree and takes the microphone, he terms his 12-year struggle as vanvaas (exile). “In these 12 years, I have faced police and been trained to deal with IAS officers and get things done. I took beatings with a lathi, sustained injuries, and was admitted to hospitals. But all of it helped me mature as a person.”
With the Gehlot government not facing a major corruption scandal, the BJP fell back on issues such as paper leaks, women’s safety, and law and order to target the Congress. And Yadav did the heavy lifting for the Opposition party even though he was not a member of any political party at the time, lending more credibility to his campaign. The issue of paper leaks is mentioned in almost every rally by top BJP leaders. The December 2022 leak itself is being examined by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which arrested, among others, RPSC member Babulal Katara two months ago and has conducted several raids.
Paper leaks and unemployment have resonated here so much that Yadav’s team says that with 9.7 lakh followers, he is now the seventh-most followed Rajasthan politician on X behind leaders such as Gehlot, Sachin Pilot, and Vasundhara Raje. Part of the reason why the issue has resonated with the Rajasthani youth is high unemployment and over 22.7 lakh first-time voters aged 18-19 years.
As per the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the unemployment rate in Rajasthan (28.5%) was next only to Haryana (37.4%) among all the states for December 2022. As of February 2023, the number of unemployed persons registered with the state government was 18,40,044, of whom 14,40,916 were graduates and 1,01,956 were post-graduates. Between 2018 and February 2023, the state government handed out Rs 1,927 crore of unemployment allowance.
Yadav, who has been campaigning barefoot “to feel the pain of locals due to poor roads in Shahpura”, claims that there are 40-50 lakh educated unemployed in the state. As a result of the direct intervention of his organisation Rajasthan Berozgar Ekikrat Mahasangh 2.5 lakh government jobs have been given, he claims.
But paper leaks were a problem during BJP rule too, something he had raised during BJP rule. Asked about one of his old videos where he is seen addressing a press conference alongside Congress leader Pawan Khera and others ahead of the 2018 elections, he says, “I have seen both Congress and BJP rule so I know which one is better for the youth. I have done a tulnatmak adhyayan (comparative study) and concluded the BJP is better as under the Congress government, Congress leaders and ministers themselves are complicit in paper leaks. Moreover, since the BJP is coming to power, I will be able to raise the issues better.”
This is also one of Yadav’s selling points. He keeps underlining that he will be able to ensure government jobs are delivered in time since the BJP will form the government in Rajasthan and he will be part of the “double engine” government.
This seems to convince quite a few people, especially the youth. First-time voters Lalit Kumar Sharma, 19, and Himesh Kumar, 18, say that Yadav “supports the youth and no one raised the issue of paper leaks like him”. For some others, the BJP candidate is merely a medium. Gautam, 21, and Ashish, 22, say that they support BJP and would have supported any other candidate put up by the party.
But winning Shahpura is an uphill task for Yadav who faces the Congress’s Manish Yadav and sitting MLA Alok Beniwal, an Independent, apart from candidates of the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
Jats are the biggest community here followed by Yadavs, upper castes, and then there are the voters from Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Scheduled Caste (SC) groups. While Beniwal is expected to corner the majority of the Jat vote, the RLP, which is seen as a party of Jats, will hope to upset Beniwal’s plans. And so Yadav too is at pains to point out the “Chaudharys” in his team and among his well-wishers. But then the OBC vote is also expected to be divided between the Congress and the BJP.
While Yadav’s chances may be uncertain, the BJP is likely to reap the benefit of fielding him beyond Shahpura. Perhaps that is what the BJP was counting on all along.
