Does Gender and Caste Influence the Selection of the Political Candidate?

Abstract

India’s political system is one of the world’s most complex systems. India’s political system is a multiparty system unlike other democratic economies. The voters’ decision in selecting the candidate differs from state to state as the culture and belief differs from north to south, east to west. This current study investigates the voters’ mind set in selecting the candidates. Three dimensions leadership, quality service and capacity to fulfill are used to measure the preference of the voters’ in selecting their candidates. Gender and caste of the voters’ are the demographic variables used to analyse. 2923 respondents were used as sample to explore the perception of the voters’ in selecting the candidate. The result of the study revealed that there is a significant relationship between the selection of candidate based on the dimensions and the gender of the voters and that voters’ selection of candidate has a positive relationship between the dimensions and the voter’s caste.