INDORE: Young Dinesh Thakur is nowadays seen typing on a laptop in a frenzy preparing visual messages that he sends across a number of social media groups and messaging applications.The posts carry the message from an 82-year-old priest of a temple in Mhow , who has filed nomination for coming assembly elections.Priest Ramcharan Das had appointed Thakur his personal assistant and gifted him the laptop to connect with youth. The priest might be a Class V pass out and oldest contestant in Indore district, but he knows how to work his way around and connect with youngsters of around 220 villages of this constituency through social media platforms.The 2018 assembly polls are seeing contestants from the age ranging from 26 years to 82 years.While youngsters are expected to have lack of experience of politics and publiccentric issues, candidates above 70 face difficulty to connect with young voters, who are about 40 per cent of the voter population.Das might face the difficulty, but his resolve to contest and tell youngsters about the problems faced under the current political scenario is strong. The priest had decided to contest after discussing it with villagers of Dongarganv, where he takes care of Ram Bharat Ashram. “Due to dispute over some land-related issues between Army and local administration, passage of the ashram was often blocked. Despite making complaints to Mhow SDM office, they have failed to pay attention towards the issue,” said Das, citing his reason to contest the polls.Unlike Das, Mithun Parmanand, 26, has filed nominations as independent candidate from Depalpur and wishes to seek assistance from elders to guide him. He claims that every contestant from Depalpur is outsider and he wanted to change the scenario. “Only people living in Depalpur can represent the constituency better.”But he plans to seek help from elders too. “Elders, who have better understanding of politics, can help raise local issues including basic amenities, transport, traffic and civic issues, during election campaign and also guide me after I win,” he said.While elderly candidates are mostly independent candidates, BJP and Congress have stopped short of giving tickets to candidates above70. Among elderly independent candidates, Bhanuprakash Tiwari (77) has filed nomination as independent candidate from Indore IV while a 70-year-old Arjun, son of Chhogalal is contesting from Communist Party of India (Marxist) from Mhow.

Stay updated with all the Latest Indore headlines here. For more exclusive & live news updates from all around India, stay connected with NYOOOZ.