Indian Politics & Policy Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2020 | Page 107

The Youth Vote in Lok Sabha Elections 2019
was an election issue, 45 percent voted
for the BJP, 10 percent for the BJP allies,
20 percent for Congress, and 6 percent
for Congress allies. Additionally, young
voters who considered joblessness to
be a very serious issue also voted for
the BJP. Although the Pulwama incident
was not stated in the open-ended
question, it did have an indirect impact
in favor of the BJP because awareness
of the air strike further strengthened
voters’ preference for BJP, even among
those for whom joblessness was a serious
issue.
Table 13: Biggest Election Issue for Voters
Source: CSDS data unit
Note: All figures are in percentages
Biggest Election Issue Youth Others
Development 14 14
Lack of jobs, unemployment 19 10
Price rise, high fuel prices 3 4
Corruption 3 3
Economy, economic growth 3 3
Poverty, neglect of poor 2 3
Lack of development 2 2
Water-related problem 2 2
Others 36 39
No opinion 17 19
Table 14: The Issue of Joblessness for the Youth
Source: CSDS data unit
Note: All figures are in percentages
Problem of joblessness Youth Others
Very serious 63 59
Somewhat serious 25 25
Less serious 4 5
Not at all serious 3 2
No response 6 9
4. Logit Regression
In order to further understand what
actually shaped young voters’ inclination
towards the BJP in the 2019
Lok Sabha election, a regression analysis
was used. The dependent variable
was young voters’ vote for the BJP in
parliamentary constituencies (PCs),
where BJP candidates were in competi-
103