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Abstract

Voting is one of the most commonly used terms in contemporary age of democratic politics. The ever-increasing popularity of democratic theory and practices has even made this term a household name. In democratic systems, and their number is quite large and ever increasing, each adult citizen uses ‘voting’ as a means for expressing his approval or disapproval of governmental decisions, policies and programmers of various political parties and the qualities of the candidates who are engaged in the struggle to get the status of being the representatives of the people. The study of determinants of electoral behavior constitutes a very significant area of empirical investigation. Man is a rational creature in the philosophical sense of term; he is not so rational in the realms of his economic or political behavior. An empirical study of the determinants of electoral behavior displays the astounding fact that the behavior of man is influenced by several irrational factors and pressure groups in invoking religious and communal factors, influence of money or charismatic personality of a leader and host of other irrational forces have their definite influence on the minds of the voters. The main purpose of the present study is to focus attention on voting behavior in India and to highlight the factors that determine the voting behavior in India.

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