Karthik Shashidhar quoted in a piece on trends that shaped the 2014 Indian election

Karthik analyses the reasons for the Bharatiya Janata Party's victory in the 2014 Indian elections, and correlates it the youth population of India.The Trends that Helped Sweep B.J.P. to Landslide Victory“According to Karthik Shashidhar, a data specialist who writes for Mint newspaper, the B.J.P. did better in states where the youth population was higher. In those states, there is a correlation between the youth population, those aged between 18 and 35, and the proportion of seats won by the B.J.P.-led National Democratic Alliance, he said....Mr. Shashidhar, who performed a preliminary analysis of 140 constituencies where there was a “direct fight” between Congress and the B.J.P. in 2009, found that back then the B.J.P. had won 66 and Congress 74; making it “an even contest,” he said.In 2014, however, in the 110 constituencies in which there was a direct fight between the two main parties, the B.J.P. won 100 while Congress won just 10. “Even in the seats that Congress won, it had fielded high-profile candidates like Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Kamal Nath, Jyotiraditya Scindia,” Mr. Shashidhar said."Read the rest of the piece here.