⁍ Sanjay Sahni is standing as an independent candidate in Bihar state.
⁍ He has won support from economists, social activists, and migrant labourers.
⁍ Nearly 90% of India’s workforce is in the informal sector.
⁍ Sahni is appealing to such voters by pointing to his years of campaigning for labour rights.
– India’s most populous state goes to the polls next week, and one man is hoping to make a name for himself. Sanjay Sahni, a 39-year-old former migrant worker, is running as an independent candidate in the eastern state of Bihar, which has an unemployment rate of around 40%, the BBC reports. Sahni tells the Thomson Reuters Foundation that he’s winning the support of economists, social activists, and migrant laborers who’ve been forced out of their jobs by the H1N1 virus. “We have been voting for politicians thinking they would work for us, but they didn’t,” Sahni says. “We have struggled for too long. It will be easier to take our work forward as a legislator.” Sahni says he wants to create jobs in smaller industries and raise wages for rural workers, who make up nearly 90% of India’s workforce. “This was my own struggle,” Sahni says. “I know how [migrant workers] are harassed.”
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-election-workers/in-indian-state-election-former-migrant-worker-pledges-jobs-for-the-poorest-idUSKBN27D286