In India, a large and diverse country, a Pandora’s box of voter choices exists that requires careful unpacking and understanding particularly when it comes to youth (under 25 years), which could affect election outcomes. In closely contested races, their votes may be decisive, making them an important target audience for political parties. So how did the youth vote this time?
20% of young voters supported Congress in 2019. This number only increased by one percentage point in 2024 showing no significant consolidation of support for the Congress among young people. However, in comparison to older voters there is an obvious bias towards BJP with respect to youth support as shown in the fact that 40% of young voters backed them in 2019 (Table 1). In fact by 2024 this party’s youth popularity had experienced just a modest decline since it lost two points among those aged between 26-35 and one being for less than twenty-five.
What role did the youth play, and how was the Congress able to challenge the BJP? During the Lok Sabha elections in 2024, for instance, Congress got support from about out of every five young voters while BJP got votes from nearly every third person aged below twenty-five and its allies received around seven percent (Table 1). On average, NDA accounted for almost half of all votes cast by Indian youths at that time. Nonetheless INDIA benefited from another rare feature – unlike BJP allies who had backing from only7%of their generation; CPM received more support from youngsters than SP did with12%, thereby helping narrow down the difference between NDA and INDIA on voter share.
To sum up even without taking into account factors like lackluster performance that negatively influence congress alliance across age groups especially amongst younger voters such as well-known corruption scandals involving prominent party members or leaders who have been convicted on various offenses whereas fulgently supporting themselves using state resources; whereas, it is noticeable that the share of Congress and its allies among voters of different age groups remains near constant, decreasing with age for the BJP – implying that the young electorates continue to be more attractive to this party than elderly ones.
