Coast youth thrilled over BJP rout

The coastal city bustling with youngsters had a good reason to celebrate the rout of BJP. It was the series of attacks on the youth by Hindutva fringe groups that pushed BJP out and ushered Congress in here.

“Which parent would want to see their children being beaten up by riff-raffs, ‘unpadhs’ or ‘anguthachaaps’? Any self-respecting parent would want to oust the party that supports fringe groups comprising of thugs and goons,” said a businessman, who had experienced the trauma of his daughter being beaten up during the infamous home stay attack in Mangalore.

Although his family of three brothers and their respective families had been traditional BJP voters, this time, they voted against the party for disgracing his daughter.

“The BJP is responsible for its fort crumbling. The Congress swept seven out of eight seats in Dakshina Kannada because the BJP has been breeding anti-social elements in the guise of religion, ideology and moral policing. I am sure every youngster  had to watch his back whenever he talked to a girl or had a beer with his friends in the local tavern.

“I feel much relieved that the BJP has gone out of power and all the money that was being pumped into the city for practising moral policing will stop and we will be free to lead our own lives without anybody dictating us what to do,” said Vijaykumar, a second year degree student, a party animal and had to face the wrath of the moral police at an ice cream parlour attack in Puttur in 2011.

Interestingly, even those youth who were misguided by the moral policing Hindutva fringe groups into spotting and attacking young couples consuming beer or alcohol, are now much relieved.

They call the the rout of BJP “a refreshing” change.

“The fringe group leaders who lived on crumbs thrown by party bigwigs instigated us into taking to moral policing as a career and seduce us with all kinds of ideas like purity of religion and community, ideal society, war against ‘love jihad’ and so on. But their own leaders were committing all sorts of undesirable acts. When we get into problems with the law for carrying out their agenda, nobody comes to our rescue and our parents are shamed,” said Ashwin Shetty, a reformed member of one of the moral policing groups in Mangalore.

Local political obsevers said the BJP rout on the coast was due to the youth voting against BJP en masse.

A total of 64,000 new voters in the 18-22 age group in Dakshina Kannada voted and, going by the results, gave the Congress a thumping victory. It seems they persuaded their parents and siblings to vote the Congress as well.