Lloyd Rudolph and Susanne Rudolph, emeritus professors at the University of Chicago, who have just published a three-volume collection of their essays on Indian democracy, on the four changes in the election process they have noticed over the years, in The Times of India:

1) A decline in the politics of charisma and darshan and a rise in the politics of vote banks and benefits.

2) The emergence of two Indias, the one-third of the voting public that views television and whose vote is shaped by personalities and persuasion, and the two-thirds of the voting public whose vote is shaped by identity politics.

3) An effort to break the hold of vote bank and regional determination of voter choice by appealing to an aam aadmi, a hypothetical all-India, average or median voter.

4) The appearance of an incipient women’s vote based on a growing consciousness that there are women’s values and interests independent of family and community.

Read the full interview here: ‘Votes, seats of national parties have declined’