Indian Politics & Policy Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2020 | Page 60

Indian Politics & Policy
Differentiating the class vote for
the BJP and Congress by location, we
get the following picture (Table 6).
Table 6: Locality * Party Voted for Lok Sabha 2019 * Economic Class Cross-Tabulation
(Figures in %)
Economic Class
Congress
Congress
allies
Party Voted for Lok Sabha 2019
BJP
BJP
allies
BSP+ Left Others
Rural Poor 14 5 33 7 8 2 31
Lower 18 8 34 8 8 2 24
Middle 18 8 34 8 8 2 24
Rich 20 6 41 8 6 2 19
Total 17 7 35 8 8 2 24
Town Poor 15 6 41 5 7 1 25
Lower 17 8 36 6 7 1 25
Middle 17 8 36 6 7 1 25
Rich 16 3 47 4 4 2 24
Total 16 6 38 6 7 1 25
City Poor 25 6 26 4 6 0 33
Source: NES 2019
Lower 25 6 26 4 6 0 33
Middle 27 3 30 5 9 0 26
Rich 14 12 47 5 2 1 19
Total 23 6 36 5 6 0 24
Overall, there seems to be no rural-urban
polarization in party preferences,
with 35 percent rural, 38 percent
town, and 36 percent of city voters preferring
the BJP, in line with BJP national
vote share, and 17 percent, 16 percent,
and 23 percent preferring Congress, the
latter having a slight relative preference
advantage in cities, going against the
historical impression of the cities being
more pro-BJP.
Breaking down the classes by
locations, we get the following picture.
While nothing goes against the broad
national pattern, and in fact, all three
location types follow the broad national
pattern, there is some degree of
class polarization visible in urban areas
between the Rich in the cities and
towns (47 percent BJP in both cities and
towns, 14 percent and 16 percent Congress,
respectively) and the Poor in the
cities (25 percent BJP, 25 percent Congress),
with a spread in BJP preference
between Rich and Poor in urban areas
of 22 percent. But this class polarization
is within urban areas, not between urban
and rural areas.
Differentiating the class vote for
the BJP and Congress by age group, we
get the following picture (Table 7).
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