Elections, Turncoats, Women

Trivedi Center for Political Data at Ashoka U is doing (g/G)od’s work by putting out election data for India that is quite detailed.

The proportion of turncoats (folks who changed party) who contested elections is actually not that high. The highest is 10% in Nagaland over the period of 1962–2019. If I’d not been lazy I’d’ve shown this on a scale of 0–1 which would have made the numbers look small (which they are).

In 2019 too, the turncoat rate is not that high. People are loyal to their parties.

Maybe the top vote-getters switch parties a lot? Not really. Below is the graph for the top 4 vote getters.

The story is not great when it comes to female contestants, no surprises. I didn’t expect Chattisgarh to have had the most female contestants though in the 1962–2019 period. Lakshadweep and Arunachal Pradesh have never(!!) seen a female contestant. Seems too bad to be true — not sure.

Situation has improved in 2019 compared to the overall picture. A full 25% of contestants in Chandigarh are female. Still miles to go.

There’s a lot more in the data. Find it here