In Madhya Pradesh, where approximately 70% of the population is involved in farming and allied occupations, both the BJP and the Congress strategically focused their campaigns on agrarian concerns and economic incentives.
The expansion of irrigation coverage and the commitment to ensuring Minimum Support Price (MSP) procurement for farmers emerged as pivotal factors contributing to the Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s government’s success in the election. The Lokniti-CSDS survey sought to explore this issue.
Addressing farmer distress, which was a prominent issue in the State, played a crucial role in influencing voters. The data indicate that four in five voters acknowledged the impact of farmer distress on their voting decisions to great extent.
Among them, the majority (65%) expressed that farmer distress had strongly influenced their vote choice (Table 1). The findings also suggest a static economic landscape for farmers over the past five years, with four in 10 (41%) asserting that conditions have remained unchanged. Meanwhile, one-third (35%) noted an improvement, and one-fifth (20%) indicated a deterioration. A distinct voting trend is observed, where farmers reporting improvement are significantly inclined to vote for the BJP (74%) over the Congress (20%). Conversely, those who felt that conditions had deteriorated swayed towards the Congress (66%) rather than the BJP (19%) (Table 2).
While analysing the penetration of the State and Central government welfare schemes, the data underscore a wider outreach for Central government initiatives tailored for farmers. Schemes such as the Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana (65%) and Kisan Fasal Beema Yojana (43%) have considerably higher beneficiaries compared to State schemes like Mukhyamantri Kisan Kalyan Yojana (29%) and Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana (24%) (Table 3).
Another noteworthy trend was that farmers benefiting from either State or Central government schemes exhibited a higher inclination to vote for the BJP compared to the Congress. On the other hand, non-beneficiaries were more likely to cast their votes in favour of the Congress over the BJP. The difference in vote choice among these schemes tends to favour the BJP more prominently in the case of State welfare schemes as compared to the Central government schemes (Table 4). The farmers’ mandate appears clear, rewarding the Chouhan government another term in power.
Devesh Kumar and Priyanka Mittal are researchers at Lokniti-CSDS
