BJP has an ambitious target

To go to 370, it would have to cross 45 per cent of the vote share. The aggregated National Democratic Alliance won 45 per cent of the vote in 2019, and 353 seats

In mid-2023, economist Sabyasachi Das released a paper “Democratic Backsliding in the World’s Largest Democracy”. This looked for signs of manipulation in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The paper had not been peer-reviewed. It triggered a firestorm, which forced Mr Das’ resignation from his post at Ashoka University. The incident has dire implications for academic freedom but that’s a subject for another day.

Mr Das used statistical methods to examine voting patterns in 59 Lok Sabha constituencies, where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won or came second, in close contests defined as a margin of less than 5 per cent of