Mood of First-Time Voter: 42% of Tier 3 city residents say religion influences friendships, 46% in Tier 2 cities 'not religious'

The Lok Sabha election in a few months is set to see a massive 130 million first-time voters go to the polls. The stakes are already high for the National Democratic Alliance that seeks to secure five more years and a seemingly united Opposition that seeks to dislodge the ruling BJP and its allies at any cost.

To get a better idea of how young first-time voters — people aged 18 to 21 — perceive of the forthcoming election, YouGov India and Firstpost conducted a nationwide survey between 5 and 16 December, 2018. There was a total of 1,332 respondents, from a panel of over 40,000, who answered questions ranging from politics and jobs, to religion and the media. The findings are being serialised in four sections:

1)  Politics and Ideology 2)  News and Media 3) Religion 4) Jobs and Economy

The third part of the section titled ‘Religion’ examines the differing views of respondents from Tier 1, 2 and 3 cities.

Sixty-one percent of respondents from Tier 3 cities identified as being religious, while 46 percent of those from Tier 1 cities claimed to be either agnostic or atheistic. While 20 percent of Tier 3 respondents claimed to visit a place of worship more than once a week, nine percent said they never visit places of worship. Forty percent of respondents from Tier 2 cities said they offer prayers on special occasions, while 40 percent of those from Tier 1 claimed to do so whenever they please.

Forty-two percent of respondents from Tier 3 cities said religion influences their friendships, while the figures in Tier 1 and 2 cities were 31 and 35 percent respectively.

To read the findings of the section of the survey titled ‘Politics and Ideology’, click here .

To read the findings of the section of the survey titled ‘News and Media’, click here .