Voting behaviour linked to GDP, wages; role of caste dynamics diminishing, says economist

The Indian voter responds more to economic issues than to caste or personalities and a state’s voting pattern is linked to its gross domestic product (GDP) and wages, a senior economist has said.

Though partisan loyalties and caste dynamics do tend to play a role in the Indian elections, their importance is declining, says Ritika Mankar of Ambit Capital in a report.

“The three economic variables that tend to have an impact on vote share gains or losses for the incumbent are GDP growth, rural wage inflation and bank credit growth, in that order of priority. A growth in GDP is awarded or rewarded with vote share gains and a loss is something that follows if the GDP decelerates,” she added.

Talking about the GDP and wages from 2014 elections, she said, “Before I get into the state level I will quickly highlight the headline level numbers for pan-India and you can see that in the run up to the 2009 elections, and that was when the GDP growth decelerated because we hit the global financial crisis, bank credit growth decelerated but rural wage inflation picked up because the the UPA started focusing on farm loan waivers, NREGA, etc. And this was the time when Congress, which was the incumbent party then, gained vote share but only marginally- 2.1 percent. Cut to 2014, when all three variables decelerated the Congress was subject to an eye watering 9.1 percent vote share loss. So that's just the pan-India findings and like you'll see in the work that we've done, at the state level also we can see that state level vote share gains are higher for the incumbent wherever they perform and they are lower than the national average wherever they underperform.”

Commenting on the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, Makar said, “The translation from vote share to seat share is almost not a science, as we have seen wide differences between the two variables. But needless to say, on the basis of our ground level checks and some work we've done with psephology, it looks like there is no doubt that the BJP returns as the single largest party in 2019. But also what comes through quite clearly from this work and other sources is that their majority will be severely diminished. So I think that's where I put it. A BJP-led government seems like the best case scenario, but the BJP component in the NDA could be significantly diminished from the 280-odd level that they achieved in 2014."