New Delhi, Mar 26: Better employment opportunities, better healthcare and drinking water are the top priorities for the voters at the all-India level, as per a survey by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR).

According to the All India Survey 2018, in all the 10 areas that were the priority for the voters, the government's rating was "below average".

"The significance of better employment opportunities as voters' highest priority has increased by 56.67 per cent from 30 per cent in 2017 to 47 per cent in 2018. At the same time, the performance of the government on this issue declined from 3.17 to 2.15 on a scale of five," the ADR survey noted.

The three main objectives of the ADR survey were to identify voters' priorities on specific governance issues, voters ratings of the government's performance on those issues, and factors affecting the voting behaviour.

According to the survey, better employment opportunities (46.80 per cent), better healthcare (34.60 per cent) and drinking water (30.50 per cent) were the top three priorities of the voters at the all-India level,

It is followed by better roads (28.34 per cent) and better public transport (27.35 per cent) at the fourth and fifth place, respectively.

Agriculture-related governance issues also featured predominantly in the top 10 voters' priorities at a time several parts of the country have been witnessing farm distress.

For instance, the availability of water for agriculture (26.40 per cent) was ranked sixth, agriculture loan availability (25.62 per cent) ranked seventh, higher price realisation for farm products (25.41 per cent) ranked eighth, and agriculture subsidy for seeds/fertilisers (25.06 per cent) ranked ninth.

Better law-and-order situation was the 10th governance-related issues in the survey.

The survey was conducted between October -December last year, covering 534 Lok Sabha constituencies with 2,73,487 voters, spread among various demographics, participating in the exercise.

"Amongst the 32 states and UTs (Union Territories) that were surveyed, in 29 of them, voters have given below average ratings to the government for its performance on all top 3 voters' priorities at the state level. This is with the exception of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, and Puducherry," the findings of the survey noted.

As per All India Survey 2018, 75.11 per cent voters disclosed that the chief ministerial candidate was the most important reason behind voting for a particular candidate, followed by candidate's party (71.32 per cent) and the candidate (68.03 per cent) himself/herself.

Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.



Ranchi(PTI): The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has emerged as a surprise element in the Jharkhand assembly elections with its candidates leading in five of the six seats where the party is contesting, according to trends available on the Election Commission's website on Saturday.

RJD candidates in five assembly seats were leading over sitting BJP legislators.

In 2019, RJD had secured only the Chatra seat where its nominee Satyanand Bhokta won.

In Deoghar, RJD’s Suresh Paswan was leading by 19,581 votes over his nearest rival and BJP's sitting MLA Narayan Das after the third round of counting.

RJD’s Sanjay Prasad Yadav was ahead by 19,867 votes in Godda over BJP MLA Amit Kumar Mandal after the sixth round of counting.

In Koderma, RJD nominee Subhash Prasad Yadav, who was out on bail, was leading by a margin of 3,471 votes over BJP’s sitting legislator Neera Yadav.

Subhas Prasad Yadav, considered to be one of the close aides of RJD supremo Lalu Prasad, was recently granted bail by the Supreme Court in a money laundering case.

Party’s Naresh Prasad Singh was leading by 5,159 votes after the fourth round of counting over BJP’s Bishrampur MLA Ramchandra Chandravanshi.

RJD's Sanjay Kumar Singh Yadav was also leading from Hussainabad by 8,213 votes after the fourth round of counting over BJP MLA Kamlesh Kumar Singh.

Party’s candidate Rashmi Prakash, however, was trailing from Chatra by 3,776 votes.

Bhokta did not contest the elections this time, and his daughter-in-law Prakash was given a ticket.