The Urban Voter: Emerging Trend and Changing Pattern
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/23210230231203797 |
| Author | Sanjay Kumar |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
The Urban Voter: Emerging
Trend and Changing Pattern
Sanjay Kumar1
Abstract
The recent phenomenon of growing urbanization in India has shifted the focus from rural vote to urban
vote in electoral politics. The discussion on urban politics and urban vote revolves largely around two
issues—first the issue of turnout and second, a somewhat different political choice among the urban
voters compared to the rural voters. The two issues have been highlighted by the fact that urban
constituencies have registered lower turnout compared to the turnout in rural constituencies. Among
the former, the constituencies of big metropolitan cities register much lower turnout compared to the
constituencies of small and medium towns. Results of various elections in the past indicate that the
backbone of electoral support of the BJP during the late 1990s is its strong support among the urban
voters. The BJP’s strong support base among the urban voters enabled it to emerge as the single larg-
est party in the Lok Sabha during the 1998 and 1999 Lok Sabha elections enabling it to form a coalition
government along with other regional parties. This article tries to seek answers to the question, why
do we see this distinct difference in voting patterns among rural and urban voters, especially till 2009
Lok Sabha elections, though it has changed somewhat during the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections? Is
it because the rural India and Urban India represent two different kinds of voters, or is it because the
issues and concerns of rural and urban voters are vastly different from each other which make them
vote differently?
Keywords
Elections, political choice, turnout, urban voter, urbanization
Introduction
The recent phenomenon of growing urbanization in India has shifted the focus from rural vote to urban
vote in electoral politics. The discussion on urban politics and urban vote revolves largely around two
issues—first, the issue of turnout and second, a somewhat different political choice among the urban
voters compared to the rural voters. The first of these issues has been highlighted by the fact that urban
Original Article
Studies in Indian Politics
11(2) 304–316, 2023
© 2023 Lokniti, Centre for the
Study of Developing Societies
Article reuse guidelines:
in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india
DOI: 10.1177/23210230231203797
journals.sagepub.com/home/inp
1 Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi, India
Corresponding author:
Sanjay Kumar, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), 29, Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054, India.
E-mail: sanjay@csds.in
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