An Analysis of Its Background and Implications Keya Dasgupta Amalendu Guha In this joint paper a geographer and a historian combine to make a post-mortem of the controversial 1983 Assam elections, down to the constituency levels. With the help of maps and poll statistics which bring out the significance of the ethnicity factor in the 1983 sanguinary elections, the authors conclude that although the voter turn-out was just half of what it was in the preceding 1978 Assembly poll for the state as a whole, there was normal to high polling in 40 per cent of the 105 constituencies where elections were contested and could be completed. These normal-to-high poll constituencies are, by and large, coterminous with seven of Assam's sixteen districts.
