Lok Sabha polls 2014: Political parties fighting for the urban vote

Almost a third of India's population lives in cities, but because of the way constituencies are organised, only about 20% of seats are semi-urban or urban in nature. Apart from the purely urban city-states like Delhi or Chandigarh, the states with the highest number of semi-urban/urban seats are Kerala (50%), Tamil Nadu (41%), Gujarat (35%) and Maharashtra (33%).



The Congress clearly grabbed a greater share of the vote in each region than the BJP in 2009. But the BJP received a much higher share of the vote in urban constituencies, than it did in other areas. The sharpest differences between BJP and Cong performance though, was not in the big cities like Delhi or Mumbai, but in the semi-urban areas and second tier towns.







Finally, first time voters (aged 18-19 years) make up a much greater proportion of voters on the rolls in rural areas, than in urban.



Notes: Urban and rural population at the district level were matched to parliamentary constituencies. Rural seats are those with less than 25% urban population. Semi-rural : 25-50% urban population, semi-urban : 50-75% urban population, and urban seats are those with more 75% urban population.
Classification of rural urban population at district level is as per census 2011. Electors and voting data from eci.nic.in. The data covers 539 seats - two seats each in Arunachal and Manipur were not included