India’s democracy needs scrutiny

 Allegations of vote manipulation and unsettling academic findings raise urgent questions about the integrity of India’s 2019 general elections.

I’m no political expert, but Rahul Gandhi’s recent charge of electoral theft in India’s 2019 general election carries some weight when seen alongside the research by Ashoka University economist Sabyasachi Das.

In his paper Democratic Backsliding in the World’s Largest Democracy, first published in 2023 and reworked in 2024, Das outlines a disturbing pattern: the incumbent party, BJP, won disproportionately more seats than it lost in closely contested constituencies. To determine if this was due to electoral manipulation or effective campaigning, Das applied rigorous statistical methods, including regression discontinuity design, to unique datasets. The evidence he presents points more strongly to manipulation, specifically targeted deletion and electoral discrimination against India’s largest minority group, Muslims, partly enabled by weak election monitoring. He calls this a “worrying development for the future of the world’s largest democracy.”

Rahul Gandhi has revived concerns over the integrity of India’s elections, accusing the BJP and Election Commission of India (ECI) of orchestrating “vote chori”. He alleges fake voters, duplicate entries, destroyed CCTV footage, and manipulation of voter rolls swung results in the ruling party’s favour. Gandhi insists his claims are evidence-based, saying, “I am a politician, what I say to the people is my word… take it as an oath.”

Unfortunately, the government and the ECI have yet to offer convincing data or evidence to rebut these charges, though the ruling party has, as expected, resorted to mudslinging. Rahul’s claims mirror Das’s findings: in BJP-ruled states, closely contested constituencies showed a sharp “discontinuous jump” in win margins favouring the incumbent, a pattern absent in prior elections. While Das stopped short of alleging direct fraud, he warns that even minor irregularities could be magnified by technological advances in future elections.

Das’s paper was published amid growing criticism of the ECI’s neutrality and electoral processes, including arbitrary voter deletions disproportionately affecting Muslims and questionable election scheduling. Voter-verifiable paper audit trails (VVPATs), introduced to boost transparency, have been widely criticized as a “grand deception” because only a tiny fraction are ever counted, and never before electronic results are declared. Public-interest petitions reveal troubling discrepancies between votes polled and counted in hundreds of constituencies, some exceeding winning margins, yet these remain unresolved in court. As one petition says, “It is not only sufficient that election results are accurate—the public must also know that the results are accurate.”

Among Das’s key observations is the unusual “jump” in BJP’s win margins in closely contested seats in the 2019 election, meaning the party won more close races than statistically expected. This anomaly was absent in previous Lok Sabha elections and state elections held simultaneously or afterward. The irregularities were mostly concentrated in BJP-ruled states. He identified around eleven constituencies where the BJP’s margin of victory was less than five percent, suggesting potential hotspots of manipulation at the stages of voter registration, voting, or counting.

These findings, combined with Rahul Gandhi’s forceful allegations, point toward a disturbing possibility: electoral fraud, even if confined to a few constituencies, implies systemic vulnerabilities that could be exploited more widely. In an era marked by declining trust in democratic institutions worldwide, and given India’s historical reputation for credible elections, these developments sound a serious alarm.

As the old saying goes, “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.” For democracy to survive and thrive, those who govern and oversee elections must not only be honest but must also be seen as honest by the people. Without that, faith in the system, and in democracy itself, may crumble. The time to act decisively, transparently, and swiftly is now.