New Delhi: The National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) vote share increases with age group, whereas the opposition INDIA bloc’s vote share surges as the voter gets younger. The NDA is more popular among the highly educated. Further, the INDIA bloc has closed the gap in popularity with the NDA among the unemployed and students, but the latter still commands higher support in these two categories.
These are some of the findings of the Axis My India exit poll survey released Sunday, which has predicted a sweep for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with the NDA possibly touching the 400-seat mark.
Axis My India has predicted a vote share of 47 percent for the NDA and 39 percent for the INDIA bloc. The opposition bloc also includes the Trinamool Congress and J&K PDP, which were not part of the alliance’s seat-sharing arrangements but are members.
Axis My India says its surveyors travelled across all 543 Lok Sabha constituencies for a “representative sampling across demography and geography”. The 912 surveyors collected 5,82,574 interviews across the country. The survey further covered 3,607 assembly constituencies out of a total of 4,123 assemblies, comprising 22,288 villages and traversing 3,83,136 km.
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Age-wise preferences
A closer look at the survey shows that the NDA continues to remain more popular in all age groups. However, the gap between it and the INDIA bloc declines as the population grows younger.
For instance, the BJP and its allies are estimated to draw a vote share of 51 per cent in the 61-and-above age group while the Congress and its allies are estimated to get 37 per cent — 14 points less. However, this gap between the two blocs comes down to just two percentage points in the age group of 18 to 25. Here, the INDIA bloc is predicted to get a 41 percent vote share while the NDA has been given 43 per cent.
The NDA is estimated to see a rare marginal decline of 1 per cent in the 18-25 and 26-35 age group compared to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
A look at occupations
In the current polls, the opposition alliance made unemployment and inflation a big issue in their campaigns. Yet, according to the exit poll, more unemployed voters picked the NDA than the INDIA bloc. The gap between the two blocs in the category has, however, come down significantly compared to the 2019 elections.
Similarly, among students, the NDA is seen as more popular but is only ahead of the INDIA bloc by a marginal one percentage point. INDIA’s 43 per cent vote share among students is the highest among all occupations surveyed for the alliance, along with fishermen.
Despite the protest over the now-repealed farm laws, the Axis My India exit poll shows that the NDA continues to be more popular than the INDIA bloc among the farmers.
The NDA is also predicted to have more than 50 percent vote share among the “military/army”, “skilled professionals”, “the retired” and “housewives’”
Among professionals, such as doctors, advocates and engineers, the NDA’s popularity is estimated to have fallen by four percentage points to 50 per cent. This is a rare decline for the bloc in any category across the survey.
In terms of educational qualifications, the exit poll shows a clear trend for the NDA.
Among those who have “not gone to school”, the survey gives the NDA a vote share of 44 per cent, which increases to 53 per cent and 51 per cent, respectively, among postgraduates and those with professional degrees.
The INDIA bloc is predicted to be more popular among those who did not go to school (42 per cent) and less popular among the postgraduates and 10th pass (37 per cent).
Caste & community choices
Voting patterns among castes and communities also had some notable takeaways.
The NDA seems to have lost some favour with the Scheduled Castes compared to the 2019 polls.
The INDIA alliance with 43 percent vote share is more popular than the NDA by three percentage points among the SCs, according to the exit polls. The NDA’s popularity has declined marginally, while the INDIA bloc’s has risen significantly.
The ruling alliance is also predicted to have further lost popularity among Muslims, from 9 percent last election to 6 percent now. The community is instead seen to have consolidated behind the Congress and its allies, giving them a vote share of 76 per cent.
The NDA continues to dominate among the OBCs — despite the Opposition’s push for a caste census — and general category communities. Among the Scheduled Tribes too, the NDA is ahead of the INDIA bloc.
Further, the gap between the NDA and the INDIA bloc is much wider among urban voters compared to rural voters. The BJP and its allies are ahead in both categories.
These Lok Sabha polls were the first after the passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill, 2023. The exit poll shows that the gap between the NDA and the INDIA bloc is of 10 percentage points among female voters and six percentage points among male voters, with the NDA clearly ahead.
This is despite the Congress and its allies seeing a major jump in vote share among women, primarily at the cost of parties not part of either alliance.
The exit poll also shows that while Narendra Modi remains the most popular person to lead the country as prime minister, 52 percent of people prefer other leaders.
After Modi, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is seen as most popular.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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