BJP is still the most popular, but the youth of small towns are doing away

In three consecutive rounds of the survey, between 2020 and 2021, around 45% of the respondents said they identified themselves with the BJP. That figure dropped sharply to just 38% in the latest round, held in November-December 2021, ahead of major state elections. Other parties could not take this support in their favour, with the Congress still in second place with 11%. About 34% of respondents no longer identify with any party as against 30% in April 2020.

As the previous round of the biennial survey has shown, this increasing political neutrality may come with its own costs. But if you expect the BJP’s support to be linked to the way voters view the government’s performance, you will be in for a surprise. Despite being more optimistic about the economy and the government than a year ago, respondents have turned away from the BJP.

The latest survey covered 12,900 respondents in 206 cities. Jointly conducted by global market research firm YouGov, Mint, and the Indian arm of the Delhi-based Center for Policy Research (CPR), the survey series examines the aspirations, concerns and attitudes of India’s digital natives.

frustrated youth

The increasing tendency to not support any party probably comes from the disillusionment of BJP supporters, as other parties have not seen any significant change in support levels. The decline in BJP’s popularity has been sharpest among women, where it lost around 12 percentage points between December 2020 and December 2021.

The concurrent trend of increasing non-identifiers – those who do not identify with either party – is driven by younger citizens of smaller towns. In December 2020, a third of post-millennial respondents did not identify with any party, but this has grown to over 40% within a year. While the largest cities did not show much change in the share of non-identifiers, the same increased from 29% to 36% in tier-3 cities.

Political distaste among youth groups is striking given job losses and rising urban poverty period of epidemic ,

cost of neutrality

It is true that strongly partisan citizens—those who identify strongly with a political party—have little patience for democratic processes, and often privilege their party identity over strongly democratic values, as in this The survey found (see Plain Facts, Jan 20). But that doesn’t mean that partisanship is inherently bad for a democracy; Nor is neutrality and political isolation desirable.

Political scientists say the tendency to identify with a political party is known to encourage political participation in a democracy, stabilize political competition, and provide citizens with signals through which they can hold governments accountable. . On the other hand, those who live far away may also be less politically active. Results from the previous round of the YouGov-Mint-CPR survey support this. Non-identifiers are half as likely to engage in protest, and also less likely to engage in activities such as signing petitions or campaigning. More worryingly, the chances of such respondents voting are also very less.

Voters’ dilemma

The survey made two ironic comments about voters’ perceptions of the world around them. One, satisfaction with the central government’s pandemic management has increased, while the popularity of the BJP has waned. Two, non-identifiers are more likely to be affected by a bleak outlook on the economy and the performance of the government. This suggests that the root of discontent may not be economic, and it has yet to make voters transfer their allegiance to other parties.

There is opportunity as well as cause for concern. If the opposition wants to garner support, it must use these cracks to propel largely neutral citizens to its side. But if our politics continues to push more citizens towards neutrality, it could be a democratic disaster.

(Rahul Verma is with CPR and Ankita Barthwal is a PhD researcher at the University of Oslo)

This is the fifth and final part of a data journalism series based on the latest YouGov-Mint-CPR Millennial Survey. read full series Here, first part Last year focused on the big churn in the job market, second part Seeing the increasing trend of investment among young Indians, third part explored the political bias that permeated urban India, and fourth part Was about how inflation is squeezing the wallets of Indian households)