While Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi, among others, slug it out on the political stage, what other issues are playing on the Indian voters’ minds as the Lok Sabha elections approach is somewhat unclear. Google Trends provides a peek into that very nebulous area via its search index.
Google search trends over the last three months (we?ve taken three months to show consistency in search trend results by eliminating trends of shorter time durations) reveals interesting insights into some key issues that have dominated headlines recently and continue to remain top-of-mind.
Key highlights:
* Corruption remains the most searched topic on Google Search Trends and the Jan Lokpal and issues around it remain the most searched topic based on recent consumer interest. When looking at the overall trend for corruption, the issue of Black Money is also a topic that features prominently in this list.
* While on corruption it?s interesting to note that even after almost 3 years, the Adarsh Housing Society scam continues to dominate search trends where it?s been the most searched among scams for the last 3 months.
* The 2G scam is also high on that list, closely followed by the Coal Gate scam. Trends reveal that these remain high in voter?s minds
* Riots have been an unfortunate part of India?s evolving socio-political history and have understandably affected the national conscience. This is consequently reflected in search trends being high with regards to the 1984 Sikh riots following the recent interview by Congress VP Rahul Gandhi. The 2002 Gujarat Riots followed by the Muzzafarnagar Riots in Uttar Pradesh were other tragic incidents that take center-stage on Google Search Trends.
* Other recent political developments that have been driving search trend results include Rahul Gandhi?s recent (and first) TV Interview while the Aam Aadmi Party?s (AAP) recent win in Delhi shows the highest search trends.
* Among government schemes for the aam-aadmi (common man), NREGA is the most searched topic followed by the Right to Information (RTI) (under legislative issues). The Food Security Bill, the Land Acquisition Bill, the Sexual Violence Bill, the Telengana State Bill and the Women Reservation Bill also show significant online interest and therefore reflect themselves prominently in search trend data.
