The INDIA bloc, led by the DMK, swept all the 39 seats in Tamil Nadu in the 2024 Lok Sabha (LS) elections including the three seats in Chennai with a vote share of 52.3% in the city. The BJP secured the second highest vote share of 20.9% in the city, followed by the AIADMK/DMDK alliance which got 14.7%. Polling booth and street level data shows that the DMK continues to hold sway among the urban poor in the city, and the BJP has a better conversion of votes among the higher income groups, measured street-by-street. While the DMK garnered votes even in certain streets where the wealthy voters live, the BJP performed poorly in low-income streets.
Three databases were triangulated to delineate the voting patterns of residents of high, and low income areas in Chennai’s three Lok Sabha (LS) seats — Chennai North, Central and South. The first database is a list of all polling stations and areas which voted in those stations in the 2024 LS polls. For instance, voters from Choolaimedu’s Rajeevgandhi Nagar and Canal Bank Street in the Thousand Lights Assembly segment in the Chennai Central constituency voted in polling station 1 in “Primary school in Namachivayapuram”. This was collated for all polling stations in the three seats.
“Form-20” data of the Election Commission, which lists the party-wise votes polled in each polling station, constituted the second dataset. This data showed, for example, that in the station, 260 valid votes were cast, of which, the DMK secured 57%, the BJP, 12.7%, etc. This was collated for all polling stations.
To ascertain if there was a variation in voting for parties on the basis of wealth/income, the data used was the guideline value of a street/area, which reflects the minimum value at which a property can be registered with the TN govt.’s registration department. Guideline value is a good proxy for wealth/income of a voter. The lowest guideline value listed is ₹1,100/sq ft, corresponding to lower income neighbourhoods, and the guideline value for the higher income was over ₹10,000/sq ft. The three data sources were used to compare the support bases of the DMK and the BJP in Chennai. Graphs below show the vote share ranges (horizontal axis) secured by DMK and BJP in higher income and lower income neighbourhoods in select areas.
Read more | How Chennai’s areas and streets voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls: A searchable list
In the graphs below, the streets/areas are listed based on their guideline values (high to low). The graphs show that the red dots (representing DMK’s vote share) shift from the left (indicating low vote share) to the right (indicating high vote share) as we move from the top to the bottom. This implies that their vote share, which is relatively lower in streets with higher guideline values, increases in streets with lower guideline values. Conversely, the blue dots (representing BJP vote share) move from right to left.
For instance, in Mylapore, the DMK secured only 18.3-22.3% votes in Luz avenue– an area with a guideline value of around Rs 22,000 per sq ft - as opposed to the BJP which secured a higher vote share of 68.4-76.3%. In contrast, in Srinivasapuram, with a guideline value of 3,300 per sq ft, the BJP secured 6.8-15.5% of votes. The DMK, on the other hand, secured 42.4-70.1% votes here.
With inputs from Aafthab Ahmed A. and Umar Muqthar Ragamathullah who interned with The Hindu Data Team
