Candidate Caste Effects in Uttar Pradesh Elections

This article assesses the impact of a candidate’s caste on the probability of voting for a party. Candidate caste effects may be pronounced in multiethnic societies and patronage democracies. This is demonstrated for four political parties in Uttar Pradesh (India) across three state elections. Using data from fieldwork, a logistic regression is employed to test two hypotheses—voters are more likely to vote for a party if it fields a candidate from their caste; and less likely to vote for that party if other parties field co-caste candidates from that constituency. Results show that hypothesized effects are statistically significant across parties and elections. Citing corroborative evidence, it is suggested that caste parties employ candidate-centric strategies in some constituencies to widen their social base.