Jobs versus security as election issue: IANS-CVOTER Poll Survey-II

Security-related issues have repeatedly shown up in the national discourse and the latest IANS-CVoter survey establishes that while employment is considered more important, security will be a factor in the elections.

On the day of the Pulwama attack, February 14, security issues showed a recall of 2.79 per cent but rose sharply in public consciousness rising to the highest recall percentage -- for the period up to April 4 -- of 28.85 per cent on March 10.

On April 4, this recall percentage had declined to 13.26 per cent, while economic issues ruled in public consciousness at 54.17 per cent and local issues registered at 23.44 per cent.

For the record, while security issues registered the highest after the Pulwama attack on a CRPF convoy, employment measured the highest recall at the beginning of the year, between January 1 and 9 when it was over 61 per cent.

The IANS-CVoter poll tracker said, "Conventional political wisdom suggests that security and terror strikes are electorally unimportant in Indian context. The re-election of Manmohan Singh led UPA after Mumbai 26/11 lent credence to this theory. However, that was a different India from current one.

"In today's India we have seen perhaps for the first-time security issue competing and outdoing a bread and butter issue like unemployment even if briefly. Therefore, the current atmospherics are convivial for PM Modi, however the persistence of the issue is under doubt. Pulwama is an issue that is emotive and oxygenated by mainstream media, if the narrative goes cold after a while, there is chance of bread and butter issues once again dominating the discourse."

--IANS

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