A votebank (also spelled vote-bank or vote bank) is a loyal bloc of voters from a single community, who consistently back a certain candidate or political formation in democratic elections. Such behaviour is often the result of an expectation of real or imagined benefits from the political formations, often at the cost of other communities.
Votebank politics is the practice of creating and maintaining votebanks through divisive policies. As this brand of politics encourages voters to vote on the basis of narrow communal considerations, often against their better judgement, it is considered inimical to democracy.
The term was coined in India, where the practice of votebank politics is rampant. Since then, it has gained currency in other Asian countries with a significant English-speaking population.
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The term vote-bank was first used by noted Indian sociologist, M. N. Srinivas[1] (who also coined the terms Sanskritisation and dominant caste), in his 1955 paper entitled The Social System of a Mysore Village[2]. He used it in the context of political influence exerted by a patron over a client. Later, the expression was used by F. G. Bailey, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, San Diego, in his 1959 book Politics and Social Change[3], to refer to the electoral influence of the caste leader. This is the usage that has since become popular.
Thought the term originally referred to voting along caste lines, it was soon expanded to describe votebanks based on other community characteristics, such as religion and language.