Indian Politics & Policy Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2020 | Page 91

The Youth Vote in Lok Sabha Elections 2019 1 Vibha Attri and Jyoti Mishra Researchers, Lokniti-Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi [email protected] [email protected] Indian Politics & Policy • Vol. 3, No. 1 • Spring 2020 Abstract The scale of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) victory in India’s 2019 parliamentary elections took most observers by surprise. The magnitude of the party’s victory indicates that it not only consolidated gains made in 2014, but also further expanded its support beyond its traditional base. Similar to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, these elections saw a lot of buzz around young voters (18- to 25-year-olds) and the parties left no stone unturned in order to attract this section. BJP’s share among young voters was 41 percent, which was not only 7 percentage points higher than that in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, but also about 4 percentage points higher than the party’s overall vote share. So clearly, the young vote played a significant role in the performance of the BJP and the party not only managed to retain the youth vote, but also expanded its support among them. Analyzing data from the National Elections Study (NES) 2019, this paper looks into the factors that influenced the youth vote in its favor. Satisfaction with the overall performance and the decisions of the central government in the last five years with a weak opposition and a weaker poll strategy helped the BJP emerge even stronger among young voters. However, it was the Modi’s popularity that triumphed over all other factors and had the most impact among the young. Keywords: youth, BJP, vote, turnout, electoral participation, issues, Lok Sabha elections El voto juvenil en las elecciones de Lok Sabha 2019 Resumen La escala de la victoria del Partido Bharatiya Janata (BJP) en las elecciones parlamentarias de la India en 2019 tomó por sorpresa a 87 doi: 10.18278/inpp.3.1.7