Democratic politics in India has an obsessive pro-rural bias. To paraphrase a well-known analyst, politicians in India “get the votes in the village and use that power to rule and plunder the cities”. For instance, 2018 was entirely dominated by issues and events related to rural distress, farmer’s resentment and falling rural income leading to the announcement of litany of big tickets schemes and soaps for the countryside. With an eye on general elections, governments at the Centre and state levels were seen fiercely competing to come out with attractive schemes to woo the crucial rural constituencies. This should not come as a surprise. Numbers play a crucial role in democracies. While there are 377 million people (roughly one-third of population) in cities and town (as per 2011 Census), it lacks the comparative advantage of the rural India. For instance, out of 543 Lok Sabha seats, only 18% of the electorate and around 90 constituencies can be called truly urban.

Notwithstanding its relatively weaker position, urban constituencies continue to play a key role, particularly in tightly fought elections. Additionally, there are a handful of states such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Punjab that have a significant urban population which can determine the fate of government formation at the Central as well as state levels. The biggest drawer of urban Lok Sabha seats are the two rival national parties: the BJP and the Congress, which shared more than 70% of the urban seats in 2009 and 2014 polls. For example, out of the 282 seats that BJP won in 2014 polls, cities contributed a record 54 seats to the party’s kitty, as opposed to Congress which won only 6 seats. However, the story was different in 2009 where the Congress bagged 37 seats while the BJP could only win 24 urban seats. Thus, one of the key reasons for the Congress’s dismal performance in 2014 was its poor turnout in the urban seats.

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