What tops the priority list of voters in Gujarat as far as expectations from political parties are concerned is the ability to earn their daily bread.

A midterm survey carried out by the Association of Democratic Reforms, (ADR) an NGO working in the area of electoral reforms has found that better employment opportunities is the most important issue for electors in Gujarat.

The survey was carried out in 527 Lok Sabha constituencies of India, including 26 in Gujarat. Five hundred electorates (over the age of 18) were made part of the survey in each constituency.

The survey provided the respondents with 30 issues including water, electricity, road, food, education etc and asked them to rate the top five.

For Gujarat, the survey found that the topmost issue was better employment opportunities with 8.72% of respondents rating it as the number one issue. Interestingly, employment remained the topmost issue for both urban and rural voters. In rural areas 8.61% of respondents made it the topmost matter of concern while the figure for urban areas was 8.92%.

Maj Gen Anil Verma, head of the National Election Watch of ADR said this was in line with what the all India survey also revealed.

"There too the biggest issue of concern is better employment opportunities," said Verma. He said except for employment opportunities, rural and urban Gujarat differed in what they considered as their top priorities.

Overall for Gujarat, better public transport came second (7.65%) followed by empowerment of women (7.60%) and security of women (7.41%).

For rural areas of Gujarat, price realisation for farm products and better public transport was the second and third most important issue.

For the urban voters, facility for pedestrians and cyclists on roads and empowerment of women was the second and third most important issue.

Security for women also figured in the top 10 list of priorities for both rural and urban voters,but it was ranked sixth in both urban and rural areas.