For 22-year-old Vaishnavi Kadam, politics is not supposed to be a defining part of her identity. An MBBS student in Pune, she describes herself as “an apolitical person”. Yet on August 22, she was among the tens of thousands of women who gathered at the Shri Shivaji Preparatory Military School for an event featuring Rahul Gandhi.
“I am an apolitical person, but I sincerely believe that Rahul Gandhi is the change India needs today,” Kadam said.
Her presence captures the political calculation behind the Indian National Congress’s “Chhatron Ki Goonj” campaign, an initiative designed to build relationships with India’s youth and engage them on reforms and issues that affect their lives. Pune was the fourth stop on the campaign and the first event organised exclusively for women.
The event, as reported by Frontline India, was deliberately unlike a conventional political gathering. Women began arriving in the early afternoon, hours before Gandhi appeared, while music artists performed on stage. The all-women setting created an atmosphere that some attendees described as unusually comfortable.
“This really has been a one-of-a-kind event. I don’t remember feeling this free in an open ground,” Kadam told Frontline. She said that she and her friends did not discuss politics extensively because of their studies, but shared the belief that India needed a change in its political system.
That sentiment is precisely what Congress is attempting to convert into political support.
The stakes are considerable. According to multiple media reports cited by Frontline, half of India’s population is under 30, making younger voters an increasingly important constituency. Political parties are therefore competing not only for votes but also for attention, particularly on social media platforms where conventional political messaging increasingly competes with entertainment, influencers and short-form video.
Recent elections have offered examples of parties successfully mobilising younger audiences. In Tamil Nadu, the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), led by actor-turned-politician Joseph Vijay, won the Assembly elections. His popularity as a film star undoubtedly formed part of the equation, but the ability of his movement to attract a predominantly young audience was itself notable.
In Kerala, the United Democratic Front, led by V.D. Satheesan, now the State’s Chief Minister, built its campaign around youth-oriented promises. Among them were an “anti-moral policing” task force and a pledge to permit “safe, non-dangerous” motorcycle modifications. That commitment has since encountered legal difficulties after the Kerala High Court directed the Motor Vehicles Department to enforce the State’s anti-modification laws strictly, although the Satheesan government has separately moved to notify permitted modifications.
Against that backdrop, Congress is attempting to construct its own relationship with younger Indians — and particularly with young women.
The Pune gathering was not without political tension. Days before it took place, the Pune Police had issued an order prohibiting public assemblies for 14 days under the Maharashtra Police Act. Permission for the Congress event was subsequently granted, subject to 30 conditions, including restrictions on objectionable banners and images.
On the night of August 21, tensions at the College of Engineering, Pune Technological University hostel brought the political contest into sharper focus. Workers of the Congress-affiliated National Students’ Union of India and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad confronted one another.
The dispute centred on two female students who had spoken publicly about long-pending scholarship dues. NSUI alleged that the students were being confined and threatened because of their support for the event. ABVP alleged that NSUI and Youth Congress workers had entered the campus and assaulted students, including one who subsequently filed a police complaint.
The Pune Police registered cases against both sides, naming several individuals and around 50 to 60 unnamed NSUI and Youth Congress workers on one side, while several ABVP workers involved in the street confrontation were detained. Days earlier, a separate confrontation between ABVP and Left-affiliated groups at Jadavpur University in West Bengal had also left several students injured.
Congress Rajya Sabha member Pawan Khera, speaking to Frontline, described these incidents as evidence of what he called a pattern of impunity. He accused opponents of enjoying the “protection and the patronage of the ruling party” at both State and central levels. He also criticised online trolling directed at women who participated in the Jantar Mantar protests, saying a teenage protester had received rape and assault threats before being pressured into apologising.
Frontline said it had approached ABVP for a response and would update its report upon receiving one.
Gandhi’s message in Pune was explicitly centred on women. He described women as India’s biggest asset and challenged the practice of identifying women through the men in their lives.
“For long, women have been identified according to the men in their lives. But women are their own individual selves,” he said.
He also questioned the Prime Minister’s social media response to the Jantar Mantar protests, asking why the Prime Minister had expressed being “culturally shocked” when women, rather than men, used abusive language against him.
Gandhi then presented a series of figures on violence, employment, education and economic inequality affecting women. He said 80 per cent of women face harassment, 29 per cent experience physical violence, six per cent are raped and 99 per cent of sexual violence cases go unreported because of social stigma. He further claimed that 50 per cent of women are denied educational or employment opportunities in the name of safety, 84 per cent need family permission to take employment, women earn 25 per cent less than men, face difficulties securing promotions and only eight per cent own land.
Frontline noted that it could not independently verify these figures by the time of publication and presented them as Gandhi’s claims.
The presentation was also carefully constructed for a younger audience. Gandhi appeared in a yellow shirt rather than his customary white attire and used the phrase “smash the patriarchy”, language more commonly associated with feminist activism than mainstream Indian political speeches.
For some young attendees, however, the appeal was less about presentation than participation.
“I have always seen politicians lecture us on how to be productive and how to be entrepreneurial,” said Pratiksha Lokhande, an undergraduate student from Kolhapur. “Our Prime Minister even made his own show to tell us how to study for exams. This is the first time a politician has actually listened to us and let us speak about our problems.”
That distinction — between being told what to do and being invited to speak — appears central to Congress’s strategy.
Gandhi’s team has also developed a significant following on Instagram, with his reels attracting strong engagement among young women. The platform has consequently become part of a wider political contest.
All four “Chhatron Ki Goonj” events have been held in States governed by the BJP, and each has attracted large youth audiences. The BJP has responded to the changing communications environment as well. Following a recent party reshuffle, its leaders have reportedly been instructed by the party’s highest office to produce reels and engage more actively with young audiences on Instagram.
The BJP has also attacked the Congress campaign directly. It labelled the Pune event “Paise ki Goonj” — Echo of Money — and BJP spokesperson Navnath Ban alleged that Congress had spent nearly Rs.10 crore to secure attendance by paying influencers. He estimated that paying around 3,000 people between Rs.30,000 and Rs.35,000 each could produce a total expenditure of between Rs.9 crore and Rs.10 crore, and questioned the source and accounting of the money.
Those allegations remain political claims rather than established facts in the material reported by Frontline.
The larger contest, however, is already visible. Congress is attempting to present Rahul Gandhi not simply as another politician addressing young Indians, but as someone prepared to listen to them. The BJP is responding by adapting its own communication strategy to the same generation and attacking the credibility of Congress’s outreach.
For Gandhi, the central challenge is therefore not filling an open ground in Pune. It is converting the willingness of young people to attend, speak and engage into sustained political allegiance.
Vaishnavi Kadam may believe that India needs change. Pratiksha Lokhande may value a politician who listens. Thousands of women may be willing to gather at a political event.
But the decisive question for Congress remains the one that no rally, Instagram reel or carefully designed campaign can answer in advance: when Gen Z enters the voting booth, will listening be enough to make Rahul Gandhi the politician they choose to hear?
