People tend to vote along traditional caste and religious lines, and successive governments have exploited communal divisions to fire up their base and poach voters from opponents.
“The situation gets very bad here sometimes – there is fighting between groups, between Hindus and Muslims,” said Bhagwati Prasad, who sells materials for Hindu cremation ceremonies outside a temple in Lucknow.
“I am a Hindu. If there is a Hindu-Muslim fight I have to stand with the Hindus.”
The complexity of such “vote-bank” politics makes it hard to predict outcomes in India’s first-past-the-post electoral system. Any party polling significantly over 30 per cent of the vote can win by a landslide.
Pollsters say it will be tough for the BJP to repeat its general election performance.
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(Sourced from agencies, feature image courtesy:oneindia.com)
