Making promises to voters in the run up to elections is a standard practice; a legitimate route for political parties to reach out to the electorate. But now political parties have gone a step ahead. Guarantees have replaced promises. In a way, the move away from promises to guarantees signals an increasing electoral competition. While political parties may come up with a specific package of guarantees, what matters more is voters’ trust in the promises made by different political parties. The findings of the pre-poll survey conducted by the CSDS help us make sense of this. In fact, the BJP ran a campaign titled ‘Modi sarkar ki Guarantee’ and the Prime Minister repeatedly assured that his guarantees would be honoured.
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‘Interesting patterns’
In Mr. Modi’s versus Mr. Gandhi’s guarantees, it appears that voters are not very much enthused by showers of guarantees as only a small slice of voters expressed a lot of trust in either. With 23% of voters having a lot of trust in Mr. Modi’s guarantees as against 17% in Mr. Gandhi’s guarantees, the BJP has only a slight advantage over the Congress.
Combining ‘a lot’ and ‘somewhat’ trust, the BJP is ahead of the Congress by a thin margin of seven percentage points. Given this, it may be said, that at the moment, voters are not differentiating much between the two parties and their guarantees (Table 1).
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Whose guarantees are appealing to whom? Some interesting patterns cannot be missed (Table 2). The first is the inter-generational pattern. Though older voters are less likely than younger voters to trust guarantees, they are more likely than others to trust Mr. Modi’s guarantees vis-à-vis Mr. Gandhi’s. Among the older voters, there is a gap of 11 percentage points in Mr. Modi’s versus Mr. Gandhi’s guarantees. While more young voters are inclined to trust in Mr. Modi’s guarantees than Mr. Gandhi’s, the gap, nevertheless, shrinks.
Trust factor
The level of trust in guarantees also varies by where voters live. It appears that Mr. Modi’s guarantees have greater purchase among the voters living in villages as compared to those living in towns and cities. Among rural voters, there is a gap of nine percentage points in the level of trust in the two leaders’ guarantees. Interestingly, those living in towns are equally likely to trust Mr. Modi’s and Mr. Gandhi’s guarantees.
The class location of voters reflects considerable variations in the level of trust in guarantees. As for rich voters, they are more likely than others to trust Mr. Modi’s guarantees. A difference of 18 percentage points among rich voters in the level of trust in Mr. Modi’s versus Mr. Gandhi’s guarantees tells it all. Mr. Gandhi’s guarantees appear to have a greater purchase among middle class voters as compared to others. It is among middle class voters that the trust gap in the two leaders’ guarantees almost closes.
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Voters with different levels of educational attainment are also likely to trust the guarantees of the two leaders quite differently. It seems Mr. Modi’s guarantees are more popular among the less educated voters than others.
Conversely, Mr. Gandhi’s guarantees seem to have greater resonance among those highly educated. It is particularly among college educated voters that the gap in the level of trust shrinks considerably.
One might see in these patterns of trust in guarantees likely patterns of voting. However, it is important to note that promises or guarantees made during elections rarely become a decisive factor in electoral choice.
Sanjeer Alam is Associate Professor at CSDS