In the 2019 general elections that re-elected the BJP, the saffron party won disproportionate share of seats in closely contested constituencies, according to a research paper by a faculty member at Ashoka University.
The paper says “the density of the incumbent party’s win margin variable exhibits a discontinuous jump at the threshold value of zero”. This implies that the BJP won disproportionately more in constituencies where it was the incumbent party and which were closely contested.
“Moreover, the BJP’s disproportionate win of closely contested constituencies is primarily concentrated in States ruled by the party at the time of election,” it says.
The author Sabyasachi Das says that he did not find similar “discontinuities” in the previous general elections for either BJP or INC (Indian National Congress), the other major national party, as well as for State Assembly elections held simultaneously with the 2019 general election and those held subsequently.
However, the author points out that this alone does not necessarily imply that electoral manipulation has taken place in the election. The author considers two leading explanations for the above-mentioned patterns. It is possible that the BJP knew what elections are going to be close and worked harder there, resulting in disproportionate wins of close races. The second possibility is ‘Electoral Manipulation’ wherein the party manipulates voter rolls and votes polled.
National Election Survey
On the first point, the paper analyses the National Election Survey (NES) of 2019 which has micro data on election campaigning and does not find evidence that the BJP campaigned more in places where they won by a close margin. “Citizens do not say they were visited more by a party worker/candidate from the BJP in constituencies barely won by the BJP”.
The paper then explores evidence in favour of the election manipulation hypothesis.
It says that after the 2019 polls, the Election Commission initially put out two separate lists of vote counts — constituency-wise “final” EVM count of votes polled across candidates and constituency-wise number of votes counted in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).
“These numbers, however, do not match with the PC-wise number of votes counted in the EVMs, as available in the official website of the ECI. This is unusual as votes polled and votes counted in the EVMs should be identical and when the media pointed this out, the first list was deleted”. The paper finds that the mismatch between the twice released turnout data is significantly higher in constituencies barely won by the BJP, which again hints at fraud. Moreover, the pattern is, as before, concentrated in States ruled by the BJP.
The paper argues that manipulation is local at the booth level.
Additionally, it indicates that manipulation appears to be concentrated in constituencies that have a high share of observers who are State civil service (SCS) officers from BJP-ruled States, and unlike the IAS, they may be more politically pliable.
The author, however, adds that these “tests” were, not proofs of fraud, nor does it suggest that manipulation was widespread. “Proving electoral manipulation in a robust democracy is a significantly harder task that would require detailed investigation of electoral data in each constituency separately”.
