Dorab Sopariwala

The Verdict

1. IDEA 1

   Understanding how India votes

   Roy and Sopariwala, pioneers of election analysis in India, explain how Indian elections work using decades of data. They aim to help readers understand voter behaviour and election results. Their book draws on decades of polling.

2. IDEA 2

   Polls can mislead

   The authors explain why opinion polls in India often get results wrong. Translating vote share into seats is difficult in a system with many parties and close contests. Small errors in vote share can mean large errors in seats.

3. IDEA 3

   Voters punish governments

   The authors describe anti-incumbency, the tendency of voters to reject sitting governments. They show how strongly this pattern shaped Indian elections in some decades, and how it later weakened. Their data tracks this shift.

All 8 ideas from The Verdict →