Vaishnavi Patil, 26, was supposed to share the stage with Rahul Gandhi at a Congress party event for women in Pune last month. She could not address the crowd because of time constraints but was far from disappointed. “This was the first event where a political party head was talking about women-centric issues,” the researcher told Scroll after the event.More than a thousand kilometres away in Delhi, the significance of what happened in Pune was not lost on Kritika Jain either. The 22-year-old psychology graduate said that she was “shocked” to see a male politician talk about the patriarchal nature of Indian society.“Oh my god! Wow! Is this for real?” she remembered thinking when she came across snippets from Gandhi’s speech on Instagram. “When I thought about it more, I was actually impressed.”Scroll spoke to young women from several Indian cities and found much the same sentiment. Clearly, Gandhi had struck a chord with a constituency that is otherwise neglected in Indian politics: young, urban women.However, most interviewees were quick to add that statements alone would not make them vote for the Congress party in future elections. They wanted to see Gandhi and his party do more for women before they decided to get behind him.Young women made up most of the crowd that had gathered to listen to Gandhi in Pune on August 22. Credit: Divya Aslesha/ScrollBeyond welfareIn Pune, Gandhi took a stridently feminist tone in his hour-long address to the crowd of mostly young women. Some attendees also joined him on stage and voiced their concerns.“You do not belong to anybody except yourself,” he declared, drawing loud cheers. “You have a relationship with your father, husband, brother, son. But you do not belong to them.”The public meeting in Pune was the fourth in a series of concert-style rallies through which Gandhi has been trying to appeal to young Indians. His party is calling the campaign Chhatron Ki Goonj, or echoing students’ voices. This was the first time that his presentation focused on women and the pitch was largely successful: his message resonated with many of the women at the venue.Diya, an 18-year-old law student at Pune’s Bharati Vidyapeeth College, was convinced that the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha knew what women wanted. “If he comes to power, we are going to get more solutions for our problems instead of them being dismissed,” she said.The Congress already fares better among urban women as compared to rural women, according to data put out by Lokniti, an election studies programme of the Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, for example, 21% rural women voted for the party, while 35% of them preferred the Bharatiya Janata Party. But the gap between the two parties narrowed for urban women, 25% of whom voted for the Congress, whereas 36% went with the BJP.It is no surprise then that the grand old party is trying to close this gap further.