A research paper by Ashoka University scholar Sabyasachi Das, titled ‘Democratic Backsliding in the World’s Largest Democracy’ seems to have stirred the hornet’s nest in certain political circles.
Das published this paper in the background of the credibility of the Election Commission of India (ECI) being called into question, with allegations of bias in scheduling of elections and arbitrary deletions of the names of registered Muslim voters. Both of these will have favoured the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
There have been reports by the V-Dem Institute and Freedom House questioning India’s democratic credentials.
Some of Das’s findings are deeply disturbing:
1. The 2019 general election that reelected the incumbent party shows significant irregularities in election data. The density of the incumbent party BJP’s win margin variable exhibits a discontinuous jump at the threshold value of zero. It implies that in constituencies that were closely contested between a candidate from the incumbent party and a rival, the incumbent party won disproportionately more of them than lost.
2. There were no similar discontinuities in the previous general elections for either BJP or Congress, the other major national party, as well as for state assembly elections held simultaneously with the 2019 general election and those held subsequently. Moreover, BJP’s disproportionate win of closely contested constituencies is primarily concentrated in states ruled by the party at the time of election.
3. Electoral manipulation can take place at the stage of voter registration (registration manipulation) or at the time of voting or counting (turnout manipulation). However, the overall extent of manipulation in the 2019 general election was not in the scope of the paper which focuses on closely contested constituencies to detect the presence of potential manipulation. The paper has shed light on around 11 parliament constituencies where BJP’s win margin was less than 5%.
The scholar opines that though the size of the alleged manipulation is small, the results signify a worrying development for the future of democracy in India and consequently, in the world at large. It is clear that if unchecked and given technological advancement in the meantime, these alleged manipulations could be substantially scaled up in 2024.
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However, inexplicably, Das did not consider the possibility of the manipulation of Electronic Voter Machines or EVMs themselves as a mechanism, “as Purkayastha and Sinha (2019) has pointed out that given its technology, it is hard to manipulate them at scale.”
There is ample material in the public domain questioning the sanctity of India’s electoral process mainly due to severe flaws in EVM voting and voter-verifiable paper audit trail counting. These do not comply with essential electoral and democracy requirements of end-to-end verifiability and principles which stipulate that each voter have the knowledge and capacity to verify that their vote is cast as intended, recorded as cast and counted as recorded.
The ECI arranged for all EVMs to be accompanied with VVPAT for the 2019 parliament elections. Experts are of the view that the jugaad-like way the VVPAT-device has been inserted into India’s electronic voting process has endangered security and that the process safeguards that were earlier designed to protect EVMs have lost their value. The fact is that though the device is called “voter-verifiable paper audit trail” it has been reduced to the level of a fancy bioscope which shows a tiny paper slip for seven seconds which then vanishes and is, significantly, not counted. And there is no semblance of verifiability by the voter, only a brief sighting. It is a grand deception being played on the Indian voter who is exercising her fundamental right to elect her representative to govern the country on her behalf.
This matter, so crucial to India’s democracy, went before the Supreme Court in 2018. On April 8, 2019, the court disposed of the matter, saying:
“…[O]ur considered view is that having regard to the totality of the facts of the case and need to generate the greatest degree of satisfaction in all with regard to the full accuracy of the election results, the number of EVMs that would now be subjected to verification so far as VVPAT paper trail is concerned would be 5 per Assembly Constituency or Assembly Segments in a Parliamentary Constituency instead of what is provided by Guideline No. 16.6, namely, one machine per Assembly Constituency or Assembly Segment in a Parliamentary Constituency…”
This increased the sample size from microscopic 0.5% to a minuscule 2% against the demand for 30% to 50%. The court also summarily dismissed the review petition on May 7, 2019. The request to the ECI to count at least manually the measly 2% VVPAT slips upfront and do the verification before the main electronic count was rudely rejected. In the event, in the 2019 election, not even one VVPAT slip was counted and matched before the entire electronic count was done and results were made public. This gave rise to the distinct possibility of voting and counting manipulation.
Deeply perturbed by the massive discrepancies between the votes polled and votes counted, ADR and Common Cause filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court in 2019 itself. Here is a relevant extract:
“That as per the research conducted by a team of experts with the petitioner organization there have been serious discrepancies between the number of voters in different constituencies (i.e., the voter turnout data collated and provided by the ECI) and the number of votes counted. That the study of the discrepancy patterns in all the constituencies based on the data made available on the main website of the ECI and so also the ‘My Voters turnout App’ has given the following conclusions:
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- That the Master summary of 542 constituencies shows discrepancies in 347 seats and the discrepancies range from 1 vote (lowest) to 1,01,323 votes @ 10.49% of the total votes (highest).
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- There are 6 seats where the discrepancy in votes is higher than the winning margin.
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- The total volume of discrepancies is 7,39,104 votes put together.”
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The election and its results were challenged on the following grounds also:
- Because the constitution envisages elections as an integral part of the formation of legislature and the consequent executive. The most significant function of elections is to establish the legitimacy of the elected officials in the eyes of the citizens. That in order to uphold and preserve the sanctity of elections, it is undeniably imperative that election results are accurate. It is not only sufficient that election results are accurate, the public must also know that the results are accurate. The entire electoral process is damaged if elections are not credible even in the absence of a demonstrable scam.
- Because the discrepancies between the actual voter turnout and provisional data in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections are significant and cannot be set aside without a satisfactory resolution of the same.
- Because the current statute has a procedure for resolution of a dispute through an election petition but no provision for resolution of the doubts arising out of discrepancies in very large number of constituencies all over the country.
- Because declaration of election results with alacrity should not be a priority at the altar of accuracy and integrity of elections. Several serious lapses can go unnoticed in the counting process in the rush to declare results and the winners. Conduct of Parliamentary elections in our country is a gigantic exercise spread over two-three months. To be able to announce accurate results great deliberation is required, hence to expect and want the counting process to be over in just few hours is not desirable. That this unwarranted urgency of concluding counting process on mere assumptions and conjectures shorn of the genuine authenticated data is a strictly flawed notion and therefore requires an immediate attention.
- Because resolution of doubts and discrepancies in electoral results are as essential for a democracy as resolution of disputes relating to an election exercise.
The petition also stated that even though the results for all constituencies were declared by the ECI on May 23, 2019, the ECI itself admitted on June 1, 2019 that the index forms of all 542 parliamentary constituencies are expected to reach them from Returning Officers “shortly”. Thus it had admitted that up to June 1, 2019 the ECI had not received the actual data and that the declaration of results was not based on data recorded by the Returning Officers. This is a fatal flaw that not only questions the integrity of the election but also the very legality of the parliament constituted thereof.
The Supreme Court admitted the petition and issued notice to the ECI. But till date, it has not seen the light of the day. It is equally shocking that even after nearly four and a half years, the ECI has not provided the tally of EVM and VVPAT counts. So much for India’s electoral democracy.
So was the parliament election, 2019, manipulated? Your guess is as good as mine.
M.G. Devasahayam is a former Army and IAS officer and coordinator of the Citizen’s Commission on Elections.
