Socio-Economic and Digital Determinants of Political Participation: A Decadal Analysis of Anand Constituency

This work has an elaborate comparative study of political participation/voter behaviour of last three electoral cycles of Anand Vidhan Sabha constituency which has 112 constituencies. It looks at the role of changing socio-economic condition, demographic changes and political shifts in the political participation form and level of participation by voters. Utilizing mixed-method approach involving a combination of the statistical data, field surveys and electoral records, the research studies the differences in the voter turnout, performance of the political parties and changing strength of caste, class, gender and age in shaping electoral preferences. The thesis also provides a description of the increasing importance of digital campaigning, social media outreach and issues based mobilization in the development of modern political behaviour. Comparing trends among three elections some of the following trends can be observed: “A clear movement away from conventional patterns of identity based voting to a more informed, performance based and participatory democratic culture can be observed in the paper.” It foregrounds the current problems in local governance issues concerning the credibility of candidate and development agenda all became decisive features in voter choice of leaders in the political system. The results are a mark of growing political consciousness of youth and women in the group which is a manifestation of a transformation of India’s democratic ethos. Ultimately, this study does contribute to understand the political behaviour, in a regional context, reflects the national democratic evolution, and useful insights in particular about its growing evolving dynamics of electoral participation, in semi-urban India.