What Chhattisgarh wants: Nothing but better employment opportunities matter to voter

Raipur, Dec 21: The voters of Chhattisgarh, both in the urban and rural areas have listed better employment opportunities as their primary need.

An elaborate survey done by the Association for Democratic Reforms listed its key findings after conducting the survey in which 77% of the respondents were from rural areas and 23% were from urban areas. 47% were of general caste 11% OBC, 30% SC and 12% ST.

Chhattisgarh Rural Issues as per importance:

Among the top three most important issues, the data suggests that ‘better employment opportunities' was the most important rural issue with 58% of the rural respondents stating so. It was followed by ‘Availability of water for agriculture' at 44% and tied at third place were "Higher Price Realization for farm products" and ‘Electricity for Agriculture' at 39%.

While 58% of the rural respondents found ‘better employment opportunities' as an issue, only 6% considered ‘training for jobs' as an issue. This shows the clear disparity between the employment available and the skill-set in the minds of the rural people.

The most important rural issues are all primarily agricultural-based with ‘High Price Realization for farm products', ‘Electricity for agriculture', ‘Agriculture subsidy for seeds/fertilizers', ‘Agricultural Loan Availability' taking the third, fourth, fifth and sixth positions respectively with 39%, 39%, 38% and 37% of the rural responders considering it as an issue respectively.

‘Better Roads', ‘Drinking Water', and ‘Eradication of corruption' were all voted by 33%, 13% and 7% of the respondents respectively.

‘Better Garbage Clearance', ‘Strong defence/ military', and ‘Terrorism' were all voted as minor problems with 7% of the votes.

The least important problems were ‘Reservation of Jobs and Education', ‘Training for Education', ‘Lower food prices for consumers', ‘School Education' and ‘Empowerment of women and security' with 6% of the voters voting for them.

Chhattisgarh Urban Issues:

The data suggests that ‘better employment opportunities' was the most major urban issue with 61% of the urban respondents finding it as an issue.

While 61% of the urban respondents found ‘better employment opportunities' as an issue, only 7% considered ‘training for jobs' as an issue. This shows the clear disparity between the employment available and the skill-set in the minds of the people.

The important issues are mainly ‘infrastructure-based' with ‘Better Roads', ‘Better public transport', ‘Better Hospitals/ Primary Health-Care Centres', ‘Drinking Water', and ‘Facility for cyclists and pedestrians on roads' taking third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh positions with 55%, 52%, 48%, 27% and 25% of the urban responders considering them as an issue respectively.

Other important urban issues are pollution-based with ‘Water and Air Pollution', ‘Traffic Congestion', ‘Noise Pollution' and ‘Mining/Quarrying' with 25%, 23%, 19% and 12% of the urban respondents considering them as an issue respectively.

7% of the urban respondents considered ‘Empowerment of women and their safety' as a problem.

21% of the respondents wanted ‘electricity for domestic use'.

‘Subsidized food distribution/Ration', ‘Terrorism' and ‘Encroachment of Public Lands/Lakes' were voted as the least of the problems with only 5% of the voters voting for them.

Performance of the Chhattisgarh Government on the rural issues

The performance of the Chhattisgarh Government was best on ‘Agriculture loan availability' and ‘Electricity for agriculture' with an average score of 4.54 and 4.53 for each of them respectively.

The next best performance of the government was on ‘Agricultural Subsidy for seeds/fertilisers' with an average score of 4.32. Therefore, the government performed well in the agricultural sector.

Next, the average score of the government on ‘Beeter hospitals/Primary Health Care Centres' was 4.21.

‘Availability of water for agriculture' and ‘Strong Defence/Military' come in next with an average score of 4.20 and 4.08 respectively.

‘Empowerment of women and their security' was relatively poor at 2.90.

‘Terrorism', ‘Training for Jobs', ‘Eradication of Corruption' and ‘Water, River, Lake Pollution' were poorly performed with the respective average scores of 2.34, 2.24, 1.05 and 1.05.

The worst performed sectors were ‘Sand and Stone Quarrying/Mining', ‘Encroachment of Public Land/Lakes', and ‘Reservation for jobs and education' with the average score of 1.05, 1 and 1 respectively.

Performance of the Chhattisgarh Government on the urban issues:

The performance of the Chhattisgarh government was best on ‘Electricity for Domestic Use', ‘Better Roads', ‘Better Law and Order/Policing' and ‘Better Public Transport' with respective average scores of 4.15, 3.92, 3.48 and 3.39.

The next was ‘Better Hospitals/Primary Health Care Centres' with an average score of 3.32.

‘Drinking Water' and ‘Empowerment of Women and Security' were relatively poorly performed and had respective average scores of 2.25 and 2.09.

The worst performed sectors were ‘Subsidized food distribution/Ration', 'Noise Pollution', ‘School Education', and ‘Reservation for jobs and education' with respective average scores of 1.51, 1.44, 1.38 and 1.25 respectively.

Voting Behaviour:

The survey identified the important factors that people take into account before voting for a particular candidate. Issues like whether the candidate matters the most or other issues like caste/religion of the candidate and CM candidate of the party.

The survey asked respondents about the reason they vote for a particular candidate. They were given five choices - candidate, party, party's chief ministerial candidate, religion and caste. Respondents had to rank each of these as either very important, important or not important. Taking the weighted average across respondents for each of these factors, we can gauge the aggregate importance of each of the five factors across all voters.

It is interesting that, according to the survey, the most important factor for voters is the CM Candidate, followed by the Candidate's party and the candidate. The least important factors were the distribution of cash, liquor, gifts, etc. and the Candidate's caste or religion.

Some Salient Points of the Voting Behaviour:

1. 59% of the respondents were aware of the fact that the distribution of cash/gifts/money is illegal.
2. 18% of the respondents were aware of the instances of the distribution of cash/gifts/money/liquor.
3. 32% of the respondents were aware that they can get information on criminal backgrounds of the candidates.
4. 96% of the respondents think that people should not vote for candidates with a criminal record/arrested in jail.
5. 98% of the respondents think that someone with a criminal case should not be in Parliament or State Assembly.
6. When asked the respondents about why the people vote for a candidate with a criminal record - 16% agreed to the candidate being of the same caste/religion, 12% agreed to the candidate being powerful, 28% agreed to the candidate doing good work, 13% agreed to the cases against the candidate not being serious, 30% agreed to the candidate spending generously in the elections and 23% agreed to not knowing about the criminal records of the candidates.
7. When asked about the social influence on the votes of the respondents - 58% voted on their own, 19% were influenced by their spouse, 21% were influenced by other family members and 2% by their friends and neighbours.