Ideologies take backseat as Jammu’s youth eye jobs

Jammu, Sep 30: The job creation, reservations, and political representation are the words that resonate on the Jammu University campus as the students discuss the prospects of the major political parties in the ongoing assembly polls.

Jammu district comprising 11 constituencies will go to polls on Tuesday in the third and final phase of the J&K assembly elections.

The young scholars on the campus are busy calculating the arithmetic equations of various political parties.

However, the mood is in stark contrast with the city that does not have reservations in expressing the party of choice.

Congress which is fighting the elections in alliance with the National Conference (NC) is engaged in an exciting political duel with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The students seem not to be voting on ideologies but on the issues central to them.

“Unemployment, growing political vacuum, and under-representation are the major issues in the region,”   said Virendra Sharma, 27, a PhD scholar in the Department of Chemistry.

Sharma, who hails from the Gandhi Nagar area of Bahu constituency, would be voting for the first time in the assembly elections going to be held after a gap of a decade.

“The educated youth is disillusioned. Their concerns need to be taken up by the elected representatives,” she says.

Sharma said that the government besides filling up vacancies in the public sector should create job avenues in the private sector.

Her concerns were echoed by her fellow scholars, Surbi Sharma and Gunjan Vaid who too are first-time voters in the assembly elections.

The duo is apprehensive about the Centre’s move to push the reservation quota to 70 percent.

“The government’s decision to increase the ST reservation by 10 percent at the expense of Open Merit is not justified. We are already battling with a job crisis and this would further add to our woes,” Vaid said.

Surbi, hailing from Suchetgarh on the other hand bats for some preference for jobs in Jammu University, AIIMS Jammu, IIT Jammu, and IIMC Jammu.

“After the abrogation of Article 370, youth have to compete with the aspirants from across the country. The transition is very difficult. So, for now, local and educated youth need to have certain protection in jobs,” she said.

The students also want age relaxation in jobs and said that there had been minimal recruitment for a decade now.

“Most of the highly educated students find it difficult to avail jobs as the recruitment process is slow. So, whichever government comes to power should consider increasing the upper age limit,” said Vijay Kumar Dhar, a PhD scholar in the Department of Urdu.