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Political scientist Professor Pradeep K Chipper said on Tuesday that sociologists should be careful to stress that the connections between social classes determine the outcome of Indian elections.
Chipper, who gave a public lecture on “Electoral Majority Formation: Analysis of Polling Booth Data for the 2009-2019 Lok Sabha Elections,” said uncertainty surrounds Indian elections.
“Mystery surrounds Indian elections. Many voters vote for different parties in successive elections,” said Chipper, who teaches in the Department of Political Science Research at Berkeley, University of California.
Chibber said, “Uncertainty may be present because political parties do not exist as organizations in all areas in the constituency.”
Chibber noted that there are few holdouts and “big swings” in Indian elections. He said that social scientists should be careful to assert that bastions are common in Indian electoral politics.
“As sociologists, we must be careful to stress that bastions are common in Indian electoral politics and that connections between social classes determine Indian election outcomes,” he said, adding that the outcome of Indian elections is too uncertain to be predicted by such. links.
“If you think caste voting matters and people vote their caste and people’s caste identity hasn’t changed, then we should get the same outcome over and over again… But what I’m going to show you today, Indian elections are very uncertain. There is a lot of uncertainty,” he said. Chibber, who analyzed booth level data for three Lok Sabha elections (2009, 2014 and 2019) in Uttar Pradesh state, “There are very few strongholds in Indian elections.”
Chibber said volatility — defined as the swing of the percentage of the vote from one party to another — is greater at the local level (at the village level) than at the parliamentary constituency level, making the outcome of elections in India uncertain.
According to Chhibber, the volatility in India is higher than in many countries.
For example, volatility was recorded at 3.8 percent in the United States, while it was 26.7 percent in India, Chipper said.
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