Mood of First-Time Voter: 66% college grads say will vote in LS polls; only 51% of high school grads set to cast ballot

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 3 and 9 January. There was a total of 1,324 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) Jobs and Economy 3) Religion and Community 4) News and Information

The fourth and final part of the section titled ‘Politics and Ideology’ examines the views put forth by high school and college graduates. Note: Respondents who stated that they had not completed high school or that they had post-graduate qualifications formed a very small sample and as a result, are being left out of the analysis.

While 45 percent of respondents who had completed high school claimed to be interested in politics, the percentage of respondents who had graduated from college or university and claimed to be interested in politics was 60 percent.

Meanwhile, 51 percent of high school graduates said they would definitely vote in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls. This figure rose to 66 percent among college graduates.