Does electing criminally accused politicians affect the constituency level Maoist incidents? Evidence from India

This paper estimates the causal effects of electing criminally accused politicians on Maoist-initiated incidents in India at the constituency level. The research leverages the methodology of regression discontinuity design, contrasting constituency where criminally accused candidates barely lost with constituencies where non-accused candidates barely lost. The findings provide preliminary indications of the negative effect of electing criminally accused leaders on the Maoist-initiated incidents. Notably, this effect is more pronounced when accounting for variations across different states. The analysis reveals that the election of criminally accused leaders correlated with a reduction of nearly three Maoist-initiated incidents in Jharkhand, and notably, this effect remains observable over an extended period.