CPR-TCPD discussion: Political Consultants and Datafication of India’s Election Campaigns

The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and the Trivedi Centre for Political Data (TCPD), Ashoka University invite you to a virtual panel discussion on Political Consultants and Datafication of India’s Election Campaigns

Panellists: 

• Amogh Dhar Sharma, ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Oxford
• Shivam Shankar Singh, Author, How to Win an Indian Election
• Sumitra Badrinathan, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Oxford

Moderator:

• Neelanjan Sircar: Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and Visiting Scholar, Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI)

The session will be online via Zoom, Please register here. You can also watch the session online on the CPR Facebook page.

For any queries, please email communication@cprindia.org.

About the Discussion:
This is the third discussion as part of a series on the upcoming state elections in 2022.
Watch the first discussion here, and the second discussion here.

Since 2014, there has been a meteoric rise of political consultants, both numerically as well as in their significance. This marks a shift in the nature of political campaigns in India which have become increasingly professionalised and datafied. In part, it has to do with the changing contours of political communication and the penetration of social media, while others are a result of political parties outsourcing their campaign strategies. In such a setting, professional consultants and their methods have become a key tool for political mobilisation. This has also led to a greater spread of misinformation via the internet (especially social media platforms) and attempts to influence voting behaviour through targeted political ads beyond our imagination. The panel will take a broad view on these changes shaping election campaigns and their implications for Indian democracy.