50% electorate belongs to 20 to 40 years age group
Out of a total of 5.39 crore voters in Madhya Pradesh, a little more that 50% of them belong to the age group between 20 and 40 years of age. Voters in this group are pegged at 2,66,58,357 crore. This is the group that participates “most actively” in elections and is the main focus of all political parties.
Perhaps this is the main reason why most of the political parties are talking about young voters and are making poll promises to target them. Number of voters falling in the age group between 20 and 29 stands at 1,37,83,383 crore. This is the age group where a large number of voters are either students or in early stage of employment or looking for employment.
The second age group from 30 to 39 records a strength of 1,28,74,974 crore voters. Most of these voters are considered to be married and engaged in family life and in early stage of their careers. Considering gender ratio of the state that stands at 943 females per 1000 males the population of the fair sex in this group is about 1,29,38,152 crore. Thus political parties take special care to address issues related to women separately. Schemes targeting women were made where they were provided loans on subsidized rates besides giving tax relaxations at several levels.
Self Help Groups (SHG) besides other women groups were priority over men for their development. Even the Congress had made promises on the same lines in their election manifesto. Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led BJP government started distributing laptops to attract students with a ‘catch them young’ formula. Various scholarships, employment and entrepreneurship development programmes were also started by the government viewing large segment in this age group.
Construction of hostels for students and women always remains a priority of the government. New colleges, including medical, agricultural and other technical colleges are promised in the election manifesto by the political parties to target this age group of voters.
Considering that the larger chunk of the population lives in rural areas, promises related to agro-processing units and other local employment schemes are made. The current dispensation was clever enough to come up with Sambal Scheme that targeted people across the state beyond caste or creed.
Number of teen voters in Madhya Pradesh, from 18-19 years of age stands at 15,78,167 lakh. They also fall in bracket of ‘first time voters’. Most of them are engaged in studies and schemes like mobile phones to first divisioners are made to impress these first time voters.
