Is the BJP winning because of rigged electoral rolls? | Number Theory

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Updated on: Sep 8, 2025, 01:19:19 IST

By Abhishek Jha, Roshan Kishore

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The Opposition has flagged issues with electoral rolls in several states, inferring these numbers to insinuate that the BJP wins polls through voter fraud. HT's data team has earlier argued that India's rolls have never been perfect. It has also shown that drives such as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), based on strict documentary proof criteria, can lead to wrongful voter exclusions. It was also the first to use assembly constituency (AC)-wise analysis to show that Bihar's post-SIR draft roll didn't reflect systemic bias in deletions.

Recent volatilities in elector counts are not very different from what they used to be in the pre-Modi era. They do not necessarily correlate with BJP victories even today, (AFP)

Today's Number Theory uses data to make key points. Changes in elector count between the 2024 LS and state polls in Maharashtra - where Congress links B.JP's win to alleged voter roll tampering - don't explain the BJP's victory. Changes in elector per AC in 2024 mirror earlier cycles in Maharashtra and align with trends in other states holding LS and assembly polls within a year. And, changes in electors per AC between assembly elections in the post-2014 period were not very different from the period before 2014.

BJP winning Maharashtra in 2024 had nothing to do with doctored electoral rolls

BJP winning Maharashtra in 2024 had nothing to do with doctored electoral rolls
The Congress has been highlighting some ACs in Maharashtra which saw a high increase in number of electors between the 2024 Lok Sabha and assembly elections, held just months apart. The Congress-led alliance won Maharashtra in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections but lost it badly to the BJP-led alliance in the assembly elections. The BJP-led alliance’s win in the 2024 Maharashtra assembly contest was not because of some ACs seeing an abnormally high growth in the number of electors. In fact, the ACs which the BJP alliance wrested back – there are 109 of them in an assembly of 288– from the Congress alliance in Maharashtra between Lok Sabha and assembly elections are least likely to be among the quartile of ACs with the highest growth (top 25%) in electors between these two elections.
Change in electors between 2024 Lok Sabha and assembly polls in Maharashtra wasn’t something extraordinary
The median AC-wise change in electors between the 2024 Lok Sabha and assembly elections in Maharashtra was 3.6%. This is much higher than in 2019 but closer to what it was in 2014. HT also analysed elector data for seven other states between the 2014 and 2024 election cycle: three where assembly elections were held less than a year after the Lok Sabha elections (Delhi, Haryana and Jharkhand) and four where Lok Sabha elections were held around a year after assembly elections (Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan). The median change in electors per AC is at par with the 2024 Maharashtra cycle in at least some of these states, including some elections that the BJP lost.
Elector changes between state, LS polls held within one year in 2014-2025 not very different from the 1980-2005
How did elector count change between closely held elections before the Narendra Modi-led BJP captured power in 2014? ECI only started publishing AC-wise elector data from 2014 onwards, so the comparison cannot be made at the AC level. A parliamentary constituency (PC) wise comparison shows that the PC-wise median change of electors in national and state elections held within a year of each other between 2014-25 is only 1.2 percentage points higher than similar cycles in the 1980-2005 period. The statistical outliers in the 1980-2005 period, however, are much bigger than in the 2014-25 period. HT chose the 1980-2005 period because constituency boundaries changed in a delimitation exercise in 2008.
Change in electors between assembly elections was much more before 2014-2025
While Rahul Gandhi’s allegations of a big jump in electors pertain to the changes from the Lok Sabha election to the following state elections held within a year, it is worth checking the trend between just assembly elections, usually held at regular time intervals. This shows that the higher end of changes in the 1978-2007 period was generally bigger than in the 2008-2025 period, even if one were to ignore wild outliers, which are likely a result of typographical errors in old Election Commission of India reports.
What does the analysis imply?
Recent volatilities in elector counts are not very different from what they used to be in the pre-Modi era. They do not necessarily correlate with BJP victories even today, although they could well be a result of errors – whether or not conspiratorial in nature – in electoral rolls. To use these inconsistencies to allege large-scale systemic voter rigging, is not just wrong but also counter-productive from even a partisan perspective.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Abhishek Jha
Abhishek Jha is Assistant Editor-Data at Hindustan Times. He uses statistical programming to generate newsworthy insights from large datasets. He is part of the team that produces Number Theory, a daily data story feature of the paper’s print edition. Since March 2024, he has been writing Weather Bee, a weekly column for the Hindustan Times website. He is a chemical engineer by training, who specialises in stories related to weather, climate, and the environment. Jha has been at HT since 2018, where he offers data-driven perspective and analysis on politics, environment, weather, climate, economy and society. His work includes data coverage of elections in India and abroad, including the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha elections; the disasters and extreme weather resulting from changing climate, such as floods, droughts, heat waves, cold waves, and dwindling snow cap in the Himalayas; the factors that drive poor air quality in northern India; the changing patterns of land use; the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on labour market conditions; the changing pattern of consumer spending seen in the new consumer spending surveys; and social norms seen in the surveys such as the National Family Health Survey.Read More
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Roshan Kishore
Roshan Kishore is the Data and Political Economy Editor at Hindustan Times. He heads the newsroom's data journalism team, which produces Number Theory, a daily data-driven feature for the print edition and the HT app. Number Theory uses data analysis and story-telling based on it to add value to the newsroom’s daily coverage by putting stories in a larger context on a range of issues, including politics, macroeconomy, markets, global affairs and climate. Under his leadership HT’s data journalism work has established itself as a niche product in Indian journalism and pushed the boundaries of marrying academic rigour with news sense and speed. Along with writing and editing data stories, he has also been writing a weekly political economy column called Terms of Trade for HT Premium. A trained economist with an MPhil degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Kishore has also been a visiting fellow at the Centre for Advanced Studies of India (CASI) at the University of Pennsylvania. Along with his journalistic work, his writings have also appeared in journals such as the Economic and Political Weekly and working papers for CASI and UNESCAP.Read More