Price rise and unemployment have emerged as serious concerns for a significant majority of Indians. There is a consensus that employment opportunities at all levels have gone down in the last five years. At the same time, the prices of essential commodities continue to increase. The interlinkages between these two issues have affected the ability of a household to maintain its standard of living in the ever-changing economic life of the country. Our Pre-poll survey findings, broadly speaking, underlines four crucial factors in this regard. These factors will have an important role to play in this election, and they will have an impact on the future trajectories of Indian democracy.
First, the employment situation in the country is very critical. Over 60 percent of our respondents assert that getting a job has become much more difficult now (Table 1). The magnitude of unemployment is so alarming that the conventional rural-urban divide has become almost irrelevant.
