INDORE/ BHOPAL: On a typical evening in Indore, the conversation among students rarely begins with politics. It is more likely to be about the next competitive examination, a coaching class, an unfinished assignment, a job interview or the rising cost of living away from home.
But on Saturday evening, politics is hoping to enter that conversation.
Thousands of students and young professionals are expected to converge in Indore for Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s “Chhatron Ki Goonj”, an event that the party sees as much more than a student interaction. For the party that suffered one of its worst electoral setbacks in Madhya Pradesh in recent years, the gathering is being projected as a possible starting point for rebuilding its presence among a generation that increasingly lives beyond traditional party networks.
The choice of Indore is significant
The commercial capital of Madhya Pradesh sits at the heart of the 66-seat Malwa-Nimar region, an area where the Congress and BJP have traded fortunes dramatically over the past decade. In 2013, the BJP won 57 of the region’s 66 Assembly seats. Five years later, Congress reversed that trend, winning 36 seats to the BJP’s 27, while three Congress rebels won as independents.
Then came 2023.
The BJP's dominance came to the fore as it won 48 seats, while Congress was reduced to 17 seats. One seat went to the Bharatiya Adivasi Party.
Indore itself tells an even starker story
The city, long regarded as a stronghold of the RSS-BJP ecosystem, saw Congress draw a blank in all nine Assembly constituencies in 2023. Among those defeated was state Congress chief Jitendra “Jitu” Patwari, who lost Rau, a constituency he had won in both 2013 and 2018, by more than 35,000 votes to BJP veteran Madhu Verma.
For Congress strategists, that electoral wipeout has created an unusual political calculation: there is little ground to defend and plenty of ground to reclaim.
“Indore was chosen because Congress has nothing to lose here and can only gain,” a senior state Congress leader from Indore told The New Indian Express, explaining the decision to hold the programme in the city.
But there is another reason.
Indore is a city of students
The areas around Rau and adjoining parts of Dr Ambedkar Nagar (Mhow) are dotted with private universities, colleges, coaching centres, hostels and paying-guest accommodations. Students arrive not only from Indore and neighbouring districts but from across Madhya Pradesh and from states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh.
For a political party attempting to reach out to young people, the city offers something traditional rallies often cannot: a ready-made, constantly changing population of young Indians whose lives are tied to education, examinations and the search for employment.
Indore is also home to the Madhya Pradesh Public Service Commission headquarters and a large coaching industry catering to students preparing for government recruitment and competitive examinations. The city has simultaneously emerged as a growing IT and services hub, with young professionals employed by companies such as Infosys and TCS.
That combination gives Congress a broad spectrum of issues to talk about—government recruitment, examination irregularities, paper leaks, higher education, unemployment and private-sector opportunities.
Congress leaders say these are issues capable of connecting with young voters across the state.
They also see something more personal in the political challenge.
According to party sources, there are families in Madhya Pradesh in which grandparents and parents traditionally voted Congress, while younger members gradually shifted towards the BJP. The party now wants to begin rebuilding that connection with the next generation.
Long-term ambitions
Congress sources say the event's registration process is being used to build a database of young and first-time voters from Madhya Pradesh and neighbouring states. While only an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 people may physically attend the event, the party says lakhs of young people have registered.
The distinction is important. A crowd can disappear after a rally. A database, if effectively maintained and used, can become an organisational asset.
Yet the political significance of the exercise cannot be measured simply by registration numbers.
Young voters are not one political bloc. A 19-year-old preparing for the MPPSC examination may have very different concerns from a 23-year-old software professional or a student struggling to pay college fees. Some may be worried about government jobs, others about private-sector salaries, inflation, migration or opportunities outside the major cities.
Congress is therefore attempting to bring these diverse concerns under a broader political conversation centred on education and employment.
The effort has already moved beyond the stage and microphone.
Ahead of the event, local Congress workers have reportedly been reaching students through colleges, hostels, libraries, cafés and other informal spaces. The strategy reflects an attempt to communicate with a generation accustomed to digital networks and informal communities rather than traditional political meetings.
The event itself has also acquired an additional political edge because of the controversy surrounding its venue.
Congress had initially sought the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium for September 12, but the programme was postponed and shifted to an open ground near the Regional Park in the Rau Assembly constituency. The change triggered a fresh exchange between the Congress and the BJP-led state government.
The venue may carry its own symbolism
Rau is where Patwari built his political base before suffering defeat in 2023. Holding a major youth programme in the constituency places the party's attempt at political renewal close to one of the places where its recent decline was most visible.
The BJP, meanwhile, enters this contest over youth outreach from a position of considerable electoral strength. In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, BJP candidate Shankar Lalwani won the Indore seat with 78.54 per cent of the vote, while the BJP won all 29 parliamentary constituencies in Madhya Pradesh.
But electoral dominance does not eliminate the need for political engagement.
In 2024, Madhya Pradesh had around 5.63 crore electors, with roughly 1.53 crore—more than 27 per cent—below the age of 30. There were also approximately 16.89 lakh voters in the 18-19 age group.
Those numbers explain why the youth question is becoming increasingly difficult for political parties to ignore.
For Congress, “Chhatron Ki Goonj” is therefore an experiment in whether an issue-based conversation can become an organisational network.
For students, however, the test is likely to be much simpler: whether the political promises they hear translate into answers to the problems they face every day.
A young person preparing for a government examination does not experience politics through electoral statistics. It is experienced through months of preparation, uncertainty over recruitment, the fear of an examination being cancelled, the cost of coaching and the anxiety of not knowing what comes next.
A college student from outside Indore experiences the city differently again—through hostel rent, tuition fees, family expectations and the pressure to find a job before returning home.
And for a young professional, the political question may be whether a city like Indore can provide enough opportunities to build a future without having to leave Madhya Pradesh.
That is the political space Congress is attempting to enter.
Whether the Indore gathering becomes the beginning of a sustained revival cannot be determined by the size of Saturday's crowd. Its significance will depend on what happens after the stage is dismantled—whether the conversations continue, whether the students remain connected, whether their concerns shape party programmes and whether Congress can convert a moment of visibility into a durable organisational presence.
In that sense, the real event may begin only after the event ends.
