INTRODUCTION

Background of Political Parties in Punjab

Politics in reorganised present-day Punjab is dominated by mainly two parties i.e

“Shiromani Akali Dal” and “Indian National Congress”. Since 1967, Chief Minister of Punjab
has been predominantly from Jat Sikh community despite its 21% state population. The only
exception was Giani Zail Singh, the Chief Minister of Punjab from 17th March 1972 to 30th
April 1977 who belongs to other Backward Class that has population of 31.3%. But
Scheduled Castes (Dalit) community never had Chief Minister from community or any
proper representation in the Government, despite having 32% population in the state. Also
other prominent party is “Bahujan Samaj Party” especially in Daoba region and they won 9
seats in Vidhan Sabha elections in 1992 and 3 seats of general elections (Lok Shaba Punjab)
in 1996. In 2014 general elections, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was contesting for the first time
and got 4 out of 13 seats in Punjab by winning 34 of the total 117 assembly segments,
coming second in 7 segments, third in 73 segments and fourth in rest 3 segments. And their
support got increased later in Punjab.

The current government was elected in 2017 Punjab Assembly elections and the Congress
won 77 out of 117 Assembly seats with Captain Amarinder Singh as the current Chief
Minister. And the AAP is fighting its first assembly election in the state and won 20 seats.
The incumbent BJP-SAD alliance came third with 18 seats.

Political Parties

Punjab has many political parties but only few dominates, they are:

 National parties in Punjab – Indian National Congress

Bahujan Samaj Party

 Recognized state parties in Punjab – Aam Aadmi Party

Shiromani Akali Dal

 Other Parties - Shiromani Akali Dal (Taksali)

Shiromani Akali Dal (Simranjit Singh Mann)

  Alliances in Punjab – National Democratic Alliance

Punjab Democratic Alliance

United Progressive Alliance

Percentage of Male and Female voters

In the recent 2017 Punjab Assembly election, the percentage of female voters was clearly
higher than the male voters. With Punjab recording a voter turnout of 77.4%, it was female
voters who were in the lead with 78.14% turnout, in comparision with, only 76.69% of male
voters exercised their franchise. Out of the 1,98,78,654 registered electors in Punjab, there
were 1,05,03,108 male and 93,75,546 female voters. The overall voting percentage in
Punjab was a shade lower than the 78.57% votes polled in the previous assembly elections
in 2012. However, the number of votes polled this time was much higher than the votes
polled in 2012, as the number of voters in the state increased by nearly 22 lakh this time.
Thus, 1,53,80,942 voters cast their ballots this time compared to 1,38,92,749 (of 1,76,82,363
voters) last time. Also in the 2012 assembly elections, the percentage of women who voted,
at 79.1%, was slightly higher than the male voters at 78.09%.

Women Politicians and Gender Bias in Punjab

While women voters have been enthusiastically participating in the democratic process of
2017 Punjab Assembly elections, but major political parties have hardly given them fair
representation over the period of time. Among the 1,145 candidates in the fray for 117
assembly seats, only 81 were women which clearly indicating the patriarchal predominance
among political parties. Some of the parties, and leaders, even promised 33 per cent seats
for women but came nowhere close to this when the tickets were allotted. The Congress
fielded only 11 women candidates. The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal, which contested 94
seats, gave tickets to only five women candidates. The Akali Dal's alliance partner, the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which contested 23 seats, fielded only two women. The
alliance, thus, had only seven women in the fray. The Aam Aadmi Party, the new entrant in
Punjab's political scene, fielded nine women among its 112. Altogether, the four main
political parties, accounted for only 8% of female candidates. Also, there were only 32
women among the 304 independents. Women constitute nearly 47% of the over 12.98
electors in Punjab.

The fight for women's representation in lawmaking has been raging since 1996 when the
H.D. Deve Gowda government introduced the Women's Reservation Bill, proposing to set
aside 33% of all seats in the Lok Sabha and in the state assemblies for women. The Rajya
Sabha passed the bill in 2010. It couldn't sail through the Lok Sabha because there was no
consensus among major political parties on the issue, especially related to caste-based
reservations within this quota for women. The BJP-led NDA government, which has a clear
majority in the Lok Sabha, has been silent on the issue.

Voter’s Behaviour in Punjab

The voting behaviour of Punjab is influenced by its local culture. Culture is a set of attitudes,
beliefs and sentiments which give order and meaning to a political process and which
provide the underlying assumptions and rules that govern behaviour in a political system.
Political scientists opine that voting behavior is influenced by social class plus one or more
other factors, such as regions, ethnic group, religion and urban-rural differences.
Biradarism is the main component of local culture and voting behaviour of the district.
There are all sorts of biradaries in the province including locals, settlers, immigrants, traders,
professionals are settled here. Biradari is a collection of castes while a caste is the name of
the collection of some families. Castes are further divided into sub-castes, which are more
important in terms of their impact on the daily lives of people. Those who belong to Zats
form a Biradri, which is the specific socio cultural unit within which caste rules are
performed. Biradari can be defined as a rigid social system in which a social hierarchy is
maintained generation after generation.

According to the research report of Election Commission of Pakistan & Ahmed, Mughees,
Dr.(2004), especially of rural behaviour:
 Only biradaries in numerical majority are successful. It means that people cast their
votes to biradari supported candidate. The ratio of support to biradari supported
candidates in Faisalabad district is 74%.
  Major political parties or alliances award tickets to biradaries in majority. Every
political party wants to win so the party ticket is given to major biradaris because
biradari politics is deep rooted in Faisalabad’s electoral politics. Political parties
carefully weigh the relative strengths and weaknesses of candidates seeking tickets,
including the strength of their biradaris.
 A major part of voters have no political fidelity. They cast their votes to survive as a
group or biradri. In case of candidates belonging to the same biradari, voters use
their preferences. There is no party identification, that is, the psychological
attachment of a voter to a particular political party. If group A is in Pakistan People’s
Party and B is in Pakistan Muslim League, next time if A joins PML then B will
automatically quit PML. The reason is that voters do not have any ideological
attachment to political parties but biradari fidelity is against opponent groups.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Saikat Banerjee et al. (2016) has conducted a research on “Influence of Voter Demographics
and Newspaper in Shaping Political Party Choice in India” concentrating on demographic
characteristics, newspaper reading habit of voters and their political choice. Respondents
are the Voters of Kolkata and data are collected from 500 respondents out of which 320
were return resulting in overall return rate of >60%. So Actual respondents being 180. Data
are collected by surveyed through email and Direct Interview method with the help of
Structured Questionnaire - Likert scale and analysed using Empirical analysis through
hypothesized relationships with categorical variables and Quota Sampling method. It is
summarize that among all considered demographic determinants gender, marital status,
education and income of the respondents do not influence the choice of political party in
our sample. However, occupation and media habit of voters have significant impact on
political party choice in our sample. In addition, it is observed in certain categories
education and age of voters significantly influences decision making of voters. Variables
identified under this research are Voter's Demographic and Behaviour, newspaper, and
political party. This research did not consider other contextual factors like party ideology,
party leadership, political campaign, impact of social media etc.
Bibek Ray Chaudhuri et al. (2016) has conducted research on “Factors responsible behind
political brand preference of Indian Voters”, to examine cumulative impact of sources of
associations on voters’ preference of the political party and to investigate the type of causal
relationship that exists among those sources. Voters in the age group 18-60 in the city of
Kolkata in India are taken as respondents. Primary data was collected from a total of 650
voters out of which only 515 responses could be used for analysis. Surveyed through direct
interview method with the help of a structured questionnaire - Likert scale. They have used
SEM (Structural equation modelling) method for estimating the model and exploratory
factor analysis approach for aggregation of data. Projection of leader in political campaigns
should be done carefully after assessing the ground realities. If the voters’ perception about
the leader is not that positive, then other positive aspects like party image or policies may
be highlighted more in the campaigns. This study should be repeated in other major
emerging markets to test the general applicability of the theoretical model and the
empirical results introduced in this paper. For a more holistic understanding, views of
political experts should also be considered.

Wouter van der Brug et al. (2009) has conducted research on “Religion and Party Choice in
Europe”. This research is to investigate the role of religion as a dimension in European
politics by examining differences in the impact of religiosity on party choice across time,
generations and contexts. The data was taken from the respondents in each country who
answered the question whether they voted in the last European election and to test the key
propositions they use European Election Studies (EES) data from 1989 to 2004. The total
sample size is 56,491 respondents, averaging 911 per context and analysed the collected
data using Regression Model. It is interesting to note that there are no significant
differences between West and East in terms of the importance of religion on party choice.
Religion is a particularly strong determinant of support for Christian Democratic parties and
that Catholics are generally more likely to vote for the centre-right whereas secular citizens
are more likely to vote for the centre-left. There can be further studies to assess if this
increase or decease in importance of religion constitutes a onetime peak in the importance
of religion or marks the beginning of a reverse trend. Future research with additional
measures of religiosity and religious attitudes is needed to fully disentangle the relationship
between religion, attitudes towards European integration and vote choice.
Janine Dermody et al. (2008) has conducted research on “Young people and voting
behaviour: Alienated youth (or) an interested and critical citizenry?”. This study is to
examine the impact of trust, cynicism and efficacy on young peoples's non-voting behaviour
during the 2005 British general election. Young first-time voters during the three-week
period following the British general election in May 2005 are the respondents and number
of respondents are 1,134 as interviewer, gathered through survey with administered
questionnaires. Validated attitudes statements were used to measure their levels of trust,
cynicism and efficacy. The research shows that young people are generally distrusting of and
very cynical about the politicians, thus the data support the existing evidence that cynicism
contributes to feelings of political alienation. Also, while young people can be highly
distrusting and cynical, but they can also be interested in the election and vote. Current,
negative evaluations of young people and electoral politics need to be reviewed more.
Further research is needed to understand young peoples’ perceptions of democracy and
electoral politics, how their personal efficacy can be increased and what feeds their
cynicism.

Ronald Inglehart et al. (2000) has conducted research on “The Developmental Theory of the
Gender Gap: Women’s and Men’s Voting Behavior in Global Perspective”. This study is to
examine whether this traditional gender gap persists today, or whether gender cleavages in
the electorate have converged, and whether the phenomenon of the modern gender gap,
with women more left wing, has become evident elsewhere. Secondary data was collected
from the World Values Surveys (WVS), carried out in three waves in the early 1980s, the
early 1990s, and the mid-1990s. These surveys allow them to compare Sixty societies
around the globe and includes many different post-industrial, post-communist, and
developing societies. Gender differences in voting intentions are compared using a 10-point
scale and also used ordinary least squared regression models with the 10-point left–right
voting scale as the dependent variable and analyse using ANOVA and 10-point left–right
ideological scale to confirm the reliability of the measures used. Finding of this study
suggests that the modern gender gap is more strongly the product of cultural differences
between women and men in their value orientations, especially attitudes towards post-
materialism and the women’s movement, rather than differences in their lifestyles.
Propose of Research Methodology
Need and Scope of the study
For political parties, from a political marketing strategy point of view, analyzing
voter choice and behavior is becoming inevitable for better understanding of voters to
influence and predict voting behavior. Political marketing strategy can be defined as the
identification of a political entity’s purpose and the scheme through which that purpose will
be achieved. It encourages long term collection of strategic resources that separate winner
parties from losers (Nielsen 2013). Accordingly, political parties may be interested to gain
knowledge about the factors that influence the voter to select a political candidate of
his/her choice. This may enable them to draw political marketing strategy with more
accuracy.
Periodic elections at various levels involving various political parties and their candidates
provide the opportunity to exercise this choice. In recent times as democracies in many
countries have matured, a number of studies are focusing on party and candidate choice
along with various determinants for such choices. Among those, most pertinent one is voter
demographics. Political marketers need to follow a carefully crafted strategy fostered by
three phases: identifying segments in the population, targeting segments of voters,
positioning the party and implementing the strategy. India being the largest democracy with
wide variations in demographic characteristics thus provides fertile ground for testing such
relationships. Moreover, in case of India such studies are almost absent. The issue assumes
a lot of importances in India as huge sums of money are spent by major political parties to
market their party brand to the voters. Study may thus provide some perspective about
impact of voter demographics on political choice which can then be used by political parties
for effective political communication and voter segmentation. This is important to study
because normally in democracies voters’ preferences for parties change periodically. The
results of this study may also provide information on factors impacting voter idleness.

Objectives
The objective of the study is to identify the Demographic factors that influence the Political
Party choice in Punjab. So, a survey of voters will be carried out to generate the data to test
the hypothesized relationships. Our objectives of the study are:
 To understand the opinions of all types of people representing the population of the
Punjab.
 To find whether voter demographic characteristics determine their political choice.