In a 40-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire to mark the launch in early April of his forthcoming book ‘How India Votes: And What It Means’, Pradeep Gupta says that for 80% of the voters what matters is their material needs and they will vote for the party that is most likely to secure and guarantee these or has a well-established track record of delivering them. He says 70% of India’s voters are rural and of the 30% who are urban 10% are poor. Together this 70% + 10% constitute the vast majority of India’s voters and what they care about are things like roads, water supply, houses, health, inflation, employment and farmer’s issues. They do not judge parties in terms of issues such as building Ram Temples or minority appeasement.
