Lokniti-CSDS 2024 pre-poll survey | Jobs, inflation key issues in 2024 Lok Sabha elections

CSDS-Lokniti pre-poll survey reveals unemployment and price rise as key concerns for Chennai electorate in 2024 elections.

Unemployment and price rise are the key concerns of nearly half the electorate, the CSDS-Lokniti pre-poll survey in the run-up to the 2024 general elections revealed. This was a significant finding in the first part of a series of articles on the pre-poll survey.

Nearly two thirds of those surveyed (62%), with the highest among cities (65%), across localities expressed that getting jobs had become more difficult. The numbers for those living in villages and towns were 62% and 59% respectively while 65% of the men shared this opinion compared to 59% of the women. Only 12% said getting jobs had become easier.

The concern was highest among Muslims with 67% saying that getting jobs had become difficult, a number closely matched by Hindus from Other Backward Classes and Scheduled Castes — 63% each and Scheduled Tribes (59%). The opinion that jobs were easier to get was shared the highest among Hindu upper castes (17%), even as 57% of them felt that jobs were more difficult to get.

The opinions on price rise mirrored that of unemployment with a whopping 71% saying that prices have increased, with the number increasing to 76% among the poor, 76% and 75% among Muslims and Scheduled Castes.

While the numbers on these two issues indicate that prospective voters were worried about the state of the economy, the survey also revealed that a near-equal number believed that State governments (17% as opposed to 21% for the Centre, with 57% saying “both”) were responsible for shrinking job opportunities. Corresponding numbers for the issue of price rise were 26% for the Centre, 12% for the State and 56% for both.

About 48% indicated that their quality of life was much or somewhat better, while 14% said it stayed the same and 35% said it was worse off in the last five years. Only 22% said they could fulfill their needs and save money from their household income as opposed to those who couldn’t save but could fulfill their needs (36%), faced some difficulties (23%) and were not able to fulfill needs at all (12%).

A significant section, 55% (quite higher than the 40% of those surveyed in the 2019 Lokniti pre-poll) said corruption had increased with only 19% saying that it had decreased (a fall from 37% who felt so in 2019). And more respondents (25%) blamed the Centre than the States (16%) with 56% blaming them both for corruption.