Was the Ram Mandir a voting issue in the 2024 LS polls?

The impact of the Ram Mandir construction on Indian voters' preferences and the BJP's electoral performance analyzed in detail.

The Ram Mandir was inaugurated on January 22, 2024, and was strategically planned by the incumbent government just three months prior to the commencement of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. This event garnered considerable attention across the nation, making the social landscape more fertile for the BJP, as the party intended to do.

As we know, political parties enter the electoral fray by addressing issues they believe will resonate with voters, and this year was no exception.

However, one distinctive feature of the BJP’s campaign stood out: for the first time, instead of merely promising to construct the Ram Mandir, the BJP anchored its bid for power on the completion of the temple’s construction, among other issues.

But how do Indian voters feel about the construction of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya and how did it reflect in the voting pattern in the recently concluded Lok Sabha election?

The CSDS post-poll data tries to address this question of whether the Ram Mandir resonated with the voters for a long period or was momentary. In response to an open-ended question of ‘most approved work of the BJP-led NDA government’, 22% mentioned the construction of the Ram Mandir, making it the most liked work of the BJP government.

Table 1 | The table shows the responses to the question: Which is the one work done by the Union government in the last five years that you have liked the most?

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