Participants were asked to choose between paired policy options, revealing clear inclinations. An overwhelming 70% prioritized free healthcare and education for the poor over public infrastructure. Two-thirds favoured tax relief for the middle class over cash transfers. Similarly, over 70% preferred developing villages to building cities, and a similar share leaned towards income-based reservations in private jobs over caste-based ones.

The July survey was the 12th in a series that Mint runs biannually with YouGov India and Delhi-based think tank Centre for Policy Research. It had 10,314 respondents from over 200 towns and cities and was held online. About 45% of the respondents were post-millennials (Gen Z, born after 1996), and 39% were millennials (born between 1981 and 1996).

Also read | How social media fed politics and strained relations during 2024 polls

More respondents preferred increasing tax for big companies (63%) over having an inheritance tax (37%), and creating more government jobs for the youth (57%) over enabling private businesses to create more jobs (43%). Around 53% said the government should focus on narrowing the rich-poor gap (53%) over high economic growth (47%). The nearly 50-50 split shows the view wasn’t as one-sided as with most other questions. There was also a halfway split on keeping fuel prices low (51%) versus promoting public transport (49%).

Class gap

Opinions varied significantly based on respondents’ self-perceived financial status. Among those who considered themselves wealthy, preferences were nearly split across most questions. However, for those identifying as middle-class or poor, choices were more decisive, leaning heavily toward specific options.

Also read | India’s middle-class riddle: How much do you need to be called rich?

We asked similar questions two years ago, and the responses largely align—with one notable shift. Support for free healthcare and education for the poor has surged, rising from 59% to 70% when compared with public infrastructure. Meanwhile, the preference for cash transfers over lower income tax relief has dropped from 47% to 33%.

Despite a growing trend of political parties promising subsidies, India’s digital natives in urban areas appear less convinced by such offerings.

Budget challenge

The survey invited respondents to allocate a hypothetical government budget of ₹100 across five welfare policies. “Improving conditions of hospitals and schools” topped the list, receiving an average allocation of ₹24. This was followed closely by “creating conditions for more government jobs” ( ₹23), “investment in public infrastructure” ( ₹21), “stimulus for growth of big businesses” ( ₹17), and “direct cash transfers to the poor” ( ₹16).

The emphasis on hospitals and schools aligns with another finding from part 4 of this series, where a significant share of respondents favoured free or heavily subsidized education and healthcare. Once again, the survey indicates limited support for direct cash transfers to the poor.

Also read | India’s freebie paradox: Voters dislike it but want some things for free

Vote impact

Do personal economic anxieties shape views on the government’s performance? The analysis reveals a clear connection between how respondents rated the last two terms of the Bharatiya Janata Party government and their perceived difficulty in job hunting.

Also read | In charts: 2024 polls changed the electoral pitch — but only a little

Currently, 47% of urban Indians say finding a job is “difficult,” up sharply from 34% in December 2022, when the survey last asked the same question. The perception of difficulty has grown most among post-millennials, rising from 35% to 51%, and among women, from 36% to 51%, compared to a rise from 32% to 44% among men. Jobs were reportedly hardest to find in mid-sized cities, followed by tier-III cities.

Among respondents who found job-hunting difficult, 27% rated both terms of the government “equally good,” while another 27% preferred the first term. About 22% thought both terms were equally poor—the highest dissatisfaction rate among groups based on job-hunting ease. Respondents facing job difficulties were five times more likely to rate the government’s 10-year record negatively (22%) than those finding jobs easy (4%).

The survey suggests a noticeable preference for public goods, more jobs, and tax reforms. The low inclination towards the private sector could be because finding jobs has got tougher across demographics and regions. However, as the government settles into its third term, it would worry about the link between voting choices and personal economic anxieties.

(The authors are associated with CPR, New Delhi.)

This is the seventh and concluding part of a series about the findings of the 12th round of the survey. The previous parts covered political attitudes, middle-class aspirations, social media use, views on welfare policies, and healthy food habits. These surveys are skewed towards urban, well-to-do netizens, with 90% of respondents falling under the NCCS-A socio-economic category.

Part 1 (14 October): 2024 polls changed the electoral pitch — but only a little

Part 2 (15 October): Making sense of urban India’s political faultlines

Part 3 (21 October): India’s middle-class riddle: How much do you need to be called rich?

Part 4 (22 October): India’s freebie paradox: Voters dislike it but want some things for free

Part 5 (28 October): How social media fed politics and strained relations during 2024 polls
Part 6 (29 October): The great Indian diet challenge: do we really know what’s healthy?

The influential American economist of Indian origin said it was possible for India to have a long period of strong growth and become a developed economy, while many developed nations are vulnerable to geopolitical turmoil.

“We will definitely make it. In contrast, many of the developed economies are not sound at all, as they are more affected by geopolitical stress points like the Russia-Ukraine conflict. They are also going to get involved in what happens with China in the Far East. So, we can no longer count on the western powers to remain ahead.” 

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“We, on the other hand, are not involved in such events at the moment. Therefore, if we keep up where we are now in terms of our current outstanding rate of growth and everything that finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about, if that keeps up, we will be way ahead of the West,” Bhagwati said.

“So I am optimistic on that ground.”

Bhagwati was referring to Modi’s pledge last week to carry out structural reforms and inclusive growth, where he emphasized that the first three months of the National Democratic Alliance government’s third term in office was marked by a strong commitment to jobs and skills, sustainable growth, innovation, infrastructure building, quality of life and rapid growth.

Sitharaman has also expressed confidence that there would be “the steepest rise” in living standards in India in coming days.

The finance ministry had in its monthly economic review for August noted that trends indicated a strong foundation of macroeconomic stability in the country with steady growth, investment, employment and inflation trends, but flagged continued uncertainty in global economic prospects and advised monitoring of trends like the buildup of automobile inventory and slowing of fast-moving consumer goods in urban areas in the June quarter. Policymakers also are keeping an eye on fears of a recession in advanced economies.

Also read | ‘R&D support can deepen India’s share in global supply chains’

Bhagwati believes India should act fast and get a bigger share in global supply chains.

“With the global supply chain involving China getting broken, instead of moving in, we allowed other countries to break into it. Bangladesh was one of them. We have to make sure that we build up our own supply chains. We are thinking about it, but we have to move fast because if other supply chains get established, then it is all the more difficult to break into them,” he said.

To get a larger share of global trade, India also has to be more competitive and lower tariffs will help, he said. “Imports and exports are not independent; they are linked together. For exports to work and to build supply chains, we have to be able to import raw materials and components which make our supplies more competitive. If you suddenly run out of components, who will trust your supply chain? Certainty of supply chain is a very critical aspect. We have to be very smart,” Bhagwati said. Lower tariffs enable countries to import more and feed their supply chains, he said.

“Sometimes in the political economy, we see pressure getting built up to lower tariffs,” Bhagwati said, referring to former US president Donald Trump’s description of Indian customs tariffs as high. Trump, who had described India a “tariff king” in his first term in office, said in September India was an “abuser” of tariffs.

Last year, India reduced customs duty on several products imported from the US, including apples, almonds, lentils and chickpeas. That was part of removal of retaliatory duty imposed on US exports in 2019 after the US raised import duty on certain items.

Read more | India, US working on $1 bn multilateral financing for clean energy supply chain

“We have to be active with the World Trade Organization to make sure the things of interest to us remain free from trade tariffs and restrictions. And I think we are aware of that,” Bhagwati said.

The only way India can take full advantage of its demographic dividend is by attracting investment in new productive capacity in both manufacturing and services, which can employ people, he said.

“There are two ways to do it. One is to invest yourself and the other is to invite foreign capital. In our case, foreign capital is willing to come in and create jobs because we have skilled manpower… We have to maximize that advantage and try and say look, ‘We will give you good terms and so on, come and invest and use our manpower,’ because the skilled manpower also then gets doubly trained and get additional skills. Thus, it creates the manpower resources for more investments to come in. It has a virtuous, snowballing effect.”

Bordering national capital Delhi, Haryana is among the richest states in India, with a per capita income ( ₹2.96 lakh in 2022-23) about 1.7 times the national average. While the numbers would suggest people in the state are better off than their compatriots elsewhere, the locals do not quite see things that way.

Kulana, for instance, is another world compared to the prosperous and urbanized parts of the state, far from the luxury-car outlets along Grand Trunk Road and gated high-rises in urban Gurgaon. An estimated 65% of the population lives in villages, and this rustic backyard is today setting the agenda for the elections.

Unlike in earlier years, when the assembly poll was a multi-cornered contest, the polls this year are a straight fight between the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has ruled Haryana for two back-to-back terms, and the opposition Indian National Congress (INC), which has ruled the state off and on since its founding. It will be the first head-to-head fight between the two national parties since the 2024 general election.

Unlike in earlier years, when the assembly poll was a multi-cornered contest, the polls this year are a straight fight between the incumbent BJP and the opposition Indian National Congress

It is an election that will be decided by issues such as farm woes, frustration with the army’s recruitment policy, lack of job avenues, and the anguish of the state’s vaunted wrestlers. Most of all it will be decided by which way Haryana’s castes choose to lean.

Farm distress dominates

Any discussion on the Haryana election usually begins with the problems farmers in the state face. While the agriculture sector contributes just about 16% to the state’s gross domestic product, farm issues and farmer angst have dominated its political landscape in recent years.

Political parties have been going all out to pacify and woo farmers. With good reason; the state has been a hotbed of farmer protests in recent years. It started in end-2020, when a mass agitation began after the Centre introduced a set of farm laws to reform the agriculture markets. The protests were led by farmers from neighbouring Punjab and Haryana, who picketed Delhi’s doorstep for more than a year, until the three laws were repealed in 2021.

A fresh round of agitations started this February, with farmers demanding legal status for the government’s minimum support price (MSP) regime. MSP is the price at which the Centre purchases crops, mostly rice and wheat. The farmers want this to be a legal obligation for 24 non-perishable crops. When the farmers decided to march on Delhi again, a face-off ensued, with the Haryana police firing teargas shells and rubber bullets on the protesters.

“We are going to plant mustard (a winter oilseed) now, but fertilizers are not available. The state government procures only a limited quantity of crops like mustard and bajra (at MSP) but payments are often delayed by months,” complained Amit Kumar, a farmer from Kulana. The village, unlike more fertile areas such as Karnal and Ambala, grows less rice and more of other crops, including bajra (pearl millet), as there isn’t enough water available for irrigation.

Hawa Singh, a 73-year-old farmer from Sonipat, complained that rising expenses on farming have pushed him to reduce spending on household items. “The Centre is giving ₹6,000 every year (under the PM-Kisan scheme) to farmers, but I end up paying many times more, because of the 18% GST (goods and services tax) on pesticides, and steep prices of diesel (used to run farm machinery),” he said.

However, state BJP leaders appear confident about winning the farm vote and a third term. “Farmer leaders may be unhappy but real farmers are satisfied with BJP’s performance. The state purchased 14 crops at MSP and it is paying farmers ₹1,000 per acre for not burning paddy stubble (which worsens air pollution during the winter months in the National Capital Region). Congress is fuelling protests for electoral benefits,” said Surjit Kumar Jayni, BJP in-charge of Fatehabad assembly seat.

To be sure, not all farmers are in step with the protests. For instance, a large number of them grow vegetables to supply Delhi’s markets. They depend less on state support and more on market-determined prices as an MSP has not been announced for perishable crops. “We suffered a lot during the farmer agitation of 2020-2021 as roads were blocked and vegetables could not be transported to the Azadpur mandi (in Delhi),” said Dharmendra, a 46-year-old farmer from Dipalpur village in Sonipat, Haryana.

In a bid to win over the farmers, the Congress has promised to provide a legal guarantee for MSP. But the BJP has questioned this; addressing farmers at a rally earlier this month, Prime Minister and BJP leader Narendra Modi said that the Congress has not done so in states where it is in power (Karnataka, Telangana and Himachal Pradesh) and is making a false promise to farmers in Haryana. Modi also asserted that the Centre has removed the minimum export price on premium Basmati rice, which will help growers from the state earn more (the crop will be harvested beginning October).

Job and wrestler angst

The lack of decent jobs is another cause of angst, particularly among the landless. “Four of my children are graduates but none has a proper job,” said Shiv Kumar, a non-teaching staff member at a local private school in Hisar, and resident of a Valmiki mohalla (a settlement of families belonging to scheduled castes) next to Kulana. “It’s a struggle to manage daily expenses with my meagre earnings,” adds Kumar, who supplements a monthly pay of ₹5,000 with casual wage work.

The Congress has been raising the issue of unemployment, tying it with the new army recruitment scheme. “Thousands of youngsters from Haryana are illegally migrating to the USA, risking their lives, because they do not have jobs here. Families are selling land to send their children abroad… because they do not have the option of a secure army job anymore,” Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said at an election rally in Hisar, Haryana.

The Congress has not provided MSP in states where it is in power and is making a false promise to farmers in Haryana.
-Narendra Modi

The BJP’s Jayni countered this by saying that the state government had created 150,000 jobs during its term, in a clean and transparent manner.

In comparison with some states, Haryana certainly seems to be performing better. The unemployment rate among graduates in the state is at 6.6%, about half the national average, as per the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) for 2023-24.

A protest by female wrestlers has also become an emotive issue in rural Haryana. Wrestlers from the state have won multiple Olympic medals. Last January, Sakshi Malik (Olympic bronze medalist in 2016) and Vinesh Phogat led a protest in Delhi alleging sexual harassment of women wrestlers by former head of the wrestling federation and former BJP parliamentarian Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. The ‘daughters of the state’ being dragged on the streets of the national capital by the police touched a raw nerve.

Phogat, who attained celebrity status after assuring herself of at least a silver medal at the Paris Olympics in August only to be disqualified for being overweight by 100 gm, is contesting the elections on a Congress ticket from Julana assembly seat.

“Our sisters and daughters were dragged along the streets of Delhi. Anyone who protests, be it farmers or women wrestlers, is termed anti-national. This anger will be reflected on polling day,” said former wrestler Bajrang Punia, who is currently the chairman of farmer’s wing of the Congress party. He won a bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and happens to be Vinesh’s brother-in-law.

The caste factor

Politics in Haryana has always been dominated by caste. Jats, an agrarian upper caste, who comprise about a quarter of the state’s population, traditionally align with the Congress. Other Backward Castes or OBCs account for about 30% and the BJP has banked heavily on their support. Dalits (Scheduled Castes) make up another 20% of the electorate. The saffron party is hopeful of winning a third term by again riding on a consolidation of non-Jat votes.

In the 2019 state elections, the BJP won 40 out of 90 seats with a vote share of 36.5%. It formed the government in alliance with the Jananayak Janata Party (JJP), which had won ten seats. This time around, the JJP, which got 15% of the vote and won 10 seats in the 2019 polls, is facing the wrath of the Jats for supporting the BJP. Party chief Dushyant Chautala has said he made a mistake by continuing as the deputy chief minister during the farmers’ agitation in 2020/21. Indeed, amid the clash between the BJP and Congress, other parties, including the AAP, INLD, and BSP, seem to have become a sideshow in this election.

In the general elections held earlier this year, the BJP’s vote share dropped by 12 percentage points from the 2019 general elections to 46%, while the Congress saw its vote share rise by 15 percentage points to 44%. As a result, the BJP lost five of the state’s ten Lok Sabha seats to the Congress.

In March, just a month before the Lok Sabha polls, and with six months remaining for the state elections, the BJP replaced chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, who had helmed the state for nine years, with Nayab Singh Saini, in a bid to counter anti-incumbency. Khattar belongs to the Khatri caste, a minority Punjabi upper caste community, and was Haryana’s first Punjabi chief minister. Saini, who belongs to the OBC community, is the BJP’s answer to the dominant Jats.

A reading of the BJP manifesto for the state elections shows it is going all out to woo every section of the electorate. It has promised to procure 24 crops for which MSP is announced, a monthly cash transfer of ₹2,100 to women, a ₹10 lakh health insurance scheme, a guaranteed government job to Agniveers (after their four-year stint in the Army) and creating 200,000 government jobs for the youth.

The Congress, too, has promised a monthly cash transfer to women over 18 years of age, cooking gas at ₹500 per cylinder, ₹6,000 pension for elderly and widows, a caste census, restoration of the old pension scheme for government employees, and a legal guarantee on MSP for farmers. In addition, it has promised to provide ₹25 lakh health insurance and government jobs to families who lost a member during the farmer agitation.

While both parties seem to be offering similar sops, it is the state’s caste dynamics that are likely to determine the outcome of the election. On that front, the Congress could find itself on the backfoot with the Dalit vote.

Caste arithmetic is a big factor. The Congress is banking on a consolidation of Jat and Dalit votes, while the BJP is wooing OBCs. Both parties have promised multiple welfare benefits.

A shadow fight is taking place between Bhupinder Hooda, the Congress’s tallest Jat leader and former state chief minister, and Kumari Selja, the party’s Dalit face in Haryana, who is a former central minister and currently a member of Parliament from the Sirsa constituency. In the runup to the state elections, Selja has been noticeably absent from campaigning after being sidelined by Hooda and not being given much of a say in the party’s choice of candidates.

The BJP is banking on that rift, with Modi launching a tirade against Congress at his election rally in Sonipat on 25 September. “The Dalits of Haryana are seeing the drama happening within Congress. If Congress comes back to power the infighting within the party will destroy Haryana,” Modi warned.

Citing the Hansi assembly seat in Hisar as an example of how caste equations could play out, Yoginder Yogi, a local Congress leader said, “Of the 200,000 voters in Hansi, 48,000 are Jats. Whether the Congress will win this seat depends on how the Dalits and OBCs (about 120,000 together) vote. In the 2024 general elections, there was a consolidation of Dalit votes in favour of Congress. But the current internal dynamics of the party could hurt that Jat-Dalit alliance.”

Brewing discontent

The age limit for recruitment in the Indian army was reduced from 23 years to 21 years when the Agnipath scheme was launched in 2022. This seems to be a major grouse among young aspirants. In Sherpura village of Sirsa district, Kulwant Kumar missed his last shot at joining the army after he failed to qualify this year. “I have not thought of what to do next, maybe tend to cattle like my friends do,” said Kumar, 21, son of a small farmer, who will vote for the first time in these elections.

The lack of jobs and a 2022 change in the Indian Army’s recruitment policy to a short-service tenure of four years—known as the Agnipath Scheme—have demotivated the youth, say Congress leaders. “Joining the Army used to be a hope and a mark of financial security for youth from poorer families. You could see hundreds of them running on the streets every morning (preparing for the recruitment physical). Now, these dejected youth are getting into drugs and petty crime,” said Congress leader Punia.

According to Sandeep Sinwar, a farmer and activist from Sirsa, more than 50 youth from the village used to prepare for recruitment in the Army until a few years ago. “That is no longer an option now. We have been actively organizing village-level meetings to dissuade youngsters from falling for drugs, and getting into petty crime,” Sinwar said.

Will this discontent in rural Haryana outdo the support for BJP in urban sections? It certainly appears that way, say two political observers Mint spoke to. “The best case scenario for the BJP would be to win at least 35 seats by maintaining its tally in the urban and industrial belts of south Haryana (Gurgaon, Faridabad, Bhiwani),” said Rahul Verma, political scientist and fellow at Centre for Policy Research, Delhi.

“The BJP had everything going in its favour in 2019. Now, there is a desire for change. Still it would hope that factors like visible Jat dominance and infighting within Congress will help its cause,” said Verma. “Last time, it was a division of Jat votes between Congress and JJP that helped the BJP to form the government. But this time a division in Jat votes looks unlikely.”

Last time, it was a division of Jat votes between Congress and JJP that helped BJP to form the government.
-Rahul Verma

 

Yogendra Yadav, political activist and a former psephologist, who is a native of Rewari in Haryana, also believes the Congress will do well. “Large parts of what we call urban Haryana—towns like Karnal or Rohtak—are not strikingly different from the psychological and social structure of its villages, except for Gurgaon, which is an outlier,” he explained.

“After a few days of travelling in Haryana, it seems like more than half of the outcome of these elections was pre-decided by the electorate even before the campaign began. The current chief minister is more popular than the former one (Khattar). But we cannot forget that even in 2019, BJP did not get a clear mandate—the state had almost voted for a change,” Yadav added. “My sense is, this time it will be a clear verdict in favour of Congress.”