Lok Sabha polls 2019: Jobs, healthcare, drinking water top voters’ wish list

New Delhi: While the Narendra Modi-led BJP’s main thrust is still on “muscular nationalism”, terrorism and polarisation for the general election, a survey by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and the National Election Watch (NEW) found employment is the biggest issue for voters, followed by healthcare, the availability of clean drinking water and agricultural issues.

Terrorism remains the least of the priorities. The ADR-NEW survey also found that national parties send the highest number of “crorepatis” and those with criminal cases to Parliament, indicating that bigger parties use more muscle and money power.

The survey was conducted in October-December 2018. It covered 534 Lok Sabha constituencies with 2,73,487 voters.

The main objectives of this survey was to identify voters’ priorities on specific governance issues, their ratings of the government’s performance on those issues, and factors affecting voting behaviour.

The survey highlighted voters’ priorities on 31 listed issues like drinking water, electricity, roads, food, education, healthcare, public transport, etc in their respective regions in terms of its capacity, governance and specific role in improving their living conditions.

As per the survey, better employment opportunities (46.80 per cent), better healthcare (34.60 per cent) and drinking water (30.50 per cent) are the top three voters’ priorities at the all-India level, followed by better roads (28.34 per cent) and better public transport (27.35 per cent) at the fourth and the fifth place respectively.