The altered reality of mass behavioural patterns: Phase 1 of the 2024 Election Cycle

The post-COVID electorate of India has been a bit shifty as we have observed in quite a few assembly elections. From Bihar to Bengal to Karnataka to Chhattisgarh, a substantial chunk of voters have changed their stance on voting day, either for purely transactional reasons – like in Karnataka, where many voters simply calculated the average monthly pay-outs promised by the schemes of Congress and took the deal on voting day – or for perceived better governance issues – like in Chhattisgarh where the Congress government hardly suffered from anti-incumbency but the voters decided virtually on the last day that the BJP would be better placed to give good governance as it can coordinate better with the central government.

Mass behavioural analysis is a complex mixture of science and humanities that can often go wrong due to presumptive variables that one incorporates. Studying mass behavioural patterns to create predictive algorithms is fraught with errors and anomalies because we tend to overlook many metrics either due to their inherent simplicity or due to lack of domain knowhow. The COVID experience has had a strong impact on mass behaviours and quite a lot of data is out there that demonstrates this impact. The changing landscape of employment and female labour participation rates are one such example. The altered metrics of mass consumption of entertainment is another very important variable. Take the case of how the box-office is behaving since COVID and you will get a clue as to how profoundly masses have changed. These days, when you talk to small film distributors in Rajasthan or Uttar Pradesh, the one term that you will constantly hear is “updated content for post-COVID audience” as many of them have burnt their fingers by taking a bet on a “big film” of a big star. After COVID, the audiences have made a clear demarcation about what they want to see on the big screen and what they can consume on the smaller mobile screens at their leisure, the old star system is no longer a “safe bet”.

Similarly, in electoral politics too, the post-COVID voters are slowly becoming more pronounced in their choices and their votes are attaining that same “big screen” v/s small screen” distinction. The trend started with Bihar and Uttar Pradesh elections but gathered steam during Gujarat where the BJP got the “big screen” vote in 2022 and won one of the biggest victories in the state to the astonishment of the opposition parties and political analysts alike. In Karnataka and Telangana, too the voters gave Congress surprisingly easy victories. The more stunning results came at the last when BJP won all three north Indian states of MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, because voters saw that BJP is the one they wanted to see on the big screen while Congress was something they can tolerate on their smaller screens.

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi says that “Main cheezon ko bhaamp leta hoon” (I can make assessment of public mood better than all of you), he is indeed right. He has understood the altered behaviour of the masses in the post-COVID world and realises that when the voters take a preference to something, they take it so big that previous records would tumble easily. So, he has foreseen that if ever he can try and win 400 seats in the parliament, this is the most opportune moment of time in history. On the very first day of elections, at least, voting unfolded in a pattern that looks to support the Prime Minister’s vision.

Let us once again look at what happened in the two zones of India on the first day – the core zone consisting of the Northern and Western heartland and the Peripheral zone consisting of the east and the south. Let us begin with analysing the Peripheral Zone first.