Sabyasachi Das, Assistant Professor of Economics at Ashoka University, has reportedly left the institution days after his paper suggesting that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) possibly committed electoral fraud in the 2019 general elections stirred a major controversy. Titled ‘Democratic Backsliding in the World’s Largest Democracy’, the paper had garnered wide attention on social media, following which the university even distanced itself from it saying it wasn't published in any established academic journal yet.
The Wire reported the development on Sunday, August 13, saying Ashoka University has not issued any statement regarding Sabyasachi’s resignation but two faculty members were able to confirm his departure. Meanwhile, Sabyachi himself did not confirm his resignation with The Wire but told them that he would like to get his paper published before engaging with the media.
Ashoka University had earlier drawn criticism for distancing themselves from Sabyasachi’s paper. The statement said that the University was “dismayed” by the speculation and debate around it. “To the best of our knowledge, the paper in question has not yet completed a critical review process and has not been published in an academic journal. Social media activity or public activism by Ashoka faculty, students or staff in their individual capacity does not reflect the stand of the University,” it said.
Sabyasachi’s paper suggested that in the 2019 general election, in constituencies that were closely contested by a BJP candidate and a rival, the BJP won disproportionately more seats than it lost. He observed that such 'disproportionate' wins were never observed in past elections by BJP or Congress, and also that they were mainly seen in states ruled by BJP at that time. The paper says that there could be two reasons for this – either BJP committed electoral fraud or it was able to accurately predict closely contested seats and mobilise party workers to campaign more intensively, in a phenomenon known as precise control.
The paper investigates manipulation at the level of voter registration by looking at the growth rate of the electorate across constituencies and finds that it was significantly lower in closely contested constituencies with a higher Muslim population. Thus, it suggests that there could have been targeted disenfranchisement of Muslim voters, particularly in Muslim-dominated constituencies where the BJP’s chances were slim.The paper further examines manipulation at the voter turnout level by looking at constituency level Electronic Voter Machine (EVM) data from two different official versions – the final count of the EVM votes from the Election Commission of India (ECI) website and the number of EVM votes that were actually counted. The paper noted that the two figures did not always match.
Sabyasachi concluded the paper by saying, “The tests are…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.”