Mizoram rural people more interested in politics: Survey

Aizawl: Rural people in Mizoram are more interested in politics than their urban counterparts, according to a survey. While a lot of voters had expressed their loss of hope in politicians and political parties, a majority of rural people still remained loyal to the political parties they had been supporting since their grandparents’ time, the post-poll survey conducted by the Mizoram University’s political science department found.

‘Behavioural study of political attitude and opinion in Mizoram: A post-poll study during the Lok Sabha election’ was conducted in 20 of the 40 Assembly constituencies during the last few weeks.

''In each selected 20 constituencies, we short-listed four polling stations where we distributed questionnaires,'' political science lecturer of the university C Lallianchhunga said.

''While a lot of voters had expressed their loss of hope in politicians and political parties, we found that majority of rural people still remained loyal to the political parties,'' Lallianchhunga added.

''A significant finding was that many people in the rural areas were living in extreme poverty and were eagerly looking forward to a good government to liberate them. A number of cultivators said they had had enough of the primitive shifting cultivation, but had no other options due to lack of agricultural policies by the government,'' he said.

On the contrary, the survey states that the urban dwellers were economically better off than their rural counterparts. Therefore they paid lesser interest to politics.

The survey was funded by the University Grant Commission under the National Election Study 2009. The political science department had conducted similar study with CSDS (Centre for Studies of Development Science)-IBN during the Assembly elections last year. (UNI)

Source: THE SHILLONG TIMES