Share of youth in voting age population falls to lowest in decades

Elections in the world's most populous democracy begin today. In the first of a two-part series, Business Standard looks at data of youngsters who are now of voting age and how it compares with some of the 60-odd nations that will see polls in 2024

-  SAMREEN WANI

For the twelve years that Anshika studied in Uttar Pradesh's Bareilly, she often took her bicycle to school.

"But it would get punctured frequently because of the bad roads in my area," she says.

Now, 21 and a college student in Mumbai, Anshika is still impatient with the pace of infrastructural development in her constituency and wants the government to do better.

She forms part of a shrinking minority of the youth who are coming of voting age in the ongoing elections. A small proportion of the voting age population belong to the age group of the youth between 18-29 years old, than has been the case since the 1970s.