Uptight Battle of Uttar Pradesh 2017

For the last 2 decades, Uttar Pradesh has witnessed a 4 cornered battle comprising of 2 National parties and the 2 caste based regional parties. The unique feature in Uttar Pradesh politics has been the inconsistency of the voters. Unlike in eastern states of West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar etc, the people of UP, rarely give a chance to same political party twice in a row, even when the elections are for different offices (MP vs MLA). It appears that people have less patience and much more aspiration compared to the underdeveloped eastern states. The following list reveals the complete story, election after election how voters swung in favour of a particular party. (Note – The name does not necessarily indicate the single largest party of any election. It merely indicates decisive swing of voters in favour of a particular party). As one can see, no single party has managed to get swing for 2 consecutive elections in a gap as small as 2 years. Could 2017 be different?

1998 – BJP

1999 – Congress

2002 - BSP

2004 – SP

2007 – BSP

2009 - Congress

2012 – SP

2014 - BJP

A careful analysis of vote share patterns and swing trends gives us the following conclusions

1. Swing voters in UP are restless and have very low tolerance for under performance and they keep on swinging to different parties across elections. Although the degree of swing may vary (1.5% in 2002 in favour of BSP to 30% in 2014 in favour of BJP)
2. Historically SP and BSP on their own have got absolute majority only once each time and their voteshares have never crossed 31%
3. On the other hand BJP has crossed 31% 5 times and 40% once while the other National Party has crossed 20% only once in 2002.
4. It is also evident that each time, the Congress has risen; it has done so mainly at the cost of BJP. Congress’ gains both in 1999 and 2009 were mostly at BJP’s expense.
5. This gives the notion that a 4 cornered race with 4 near equal strong partners does not suit BJP, SP and BSP in that order and suits very well for Congress
6. The reason for above is, BJP’s upper caste voters can swing to Congress if the latter is deemed to be a viable, winnable option, especially in National Polls. However in Assembly Polls BJP’s Upper Caste voters have deserted BJP for BSP/SP, only when BJP’s victory was nowhere in sight (2007, 2012), in other cases, they hung around with BJP (2002)

2017 elections – The Players SWOT

1. Congress

It is a near non player in Assembly Polls (unless it pulls of a miracle, chances are that it would remain at a distant 4^th in 2017 at a vote share even lower than record low of 2014 share of 7.5%). This makes the contest a 3 way between BSP, BJP and SP.

Strength – Can get a good share of Upper Caste votes if and only if it projects itself as a viable option by projecting a strong upper caste CM face. Congress also has pockets of influence and traction with Muslim voters in Central UP.

Weakness – Hold over Dalits (who are above 20% of UP’s population) has virtually ended with the community migrating towards BSP and SP. Lack of credible OBC leaders and migration of even 2^nd rung OBC leaders to other parties means the party has no traction amongst the largest voting bloc of the state

Opportunity – Congress can accept itself to be a bit player and try to ally with BSP. Instead of trying to be a lead player, it has to act as a tail as it did in Bihar and Tamil Nadu, with both states reviving the almost dead party due to tactical alliances. The GOP can offer pockets of Muslim votes and pockets of Upper Caste votes to BSP and the arithmetic with Dalits could click

Threat – The ever declining voteshare could send the party to oblivion. If muslims and UCs sense that voting for a bit player would be wastage of votes, the 2 might shift enmasse to SP and BJP respectively. Also the rise of BJP nationally and simultaneous fall of Congress can trigger this terminal collapse

2. Samajwadi Party (SP)

The party has a strong presence in the state ever since it was formed, evident from the fact that it has always been in top 2 in each election since then. Even in 2014 at the peak of Modi Tsunami and high anti-incumbency, the party managed to get 22% votes and 5 seats. 

The party did well in 2002 and 2012; each time being the 2^nd largest party in previous elections helped it to get the maximum out of anti-incumbency. However it was never able to get re-elected to the office. Currently the incumbent party in office it has always done well in elections when it fought as challenger and when Congress party collapsed (thereby making it the strongest claimant of Muslim votes).

Strength – Has a pretty strong organization at cadre level. The party does not mind flexing its muscles in elections, especially when it is in power. Party has emphasized mainly on 3 caste-communities, Muslims (19%), Yadavas (9%), Rajputs (8%). In 3 way fight a polarization of this 37% vote bloc has proved to be enough for the party to storm into power. Also the CM who was inexperienced and found wanting in his 1^st 2 years seems to have consolidated his position since the 2014 Modi wave aftershock. Last 2 years has seen a lot of infra related push from the state govt. It has also successfully taken credit of central govt.’s work in the state. The party has focused and tried to appease its targeted votebank of 37% by bringing govt. schemes, appointments and selective law & order enforcement, to ensure a polarization in these vote blocs and has been largely successful in doing so.

Weakness – The party has failed to achieve a just law and order situation. Its advances towards a particular community, relieving culprits from the community from serious crimes such as riots, rapes, murders, extortion etc. has led to a massive undercurrent in the other communities. Preference given to a specific caste group has left out the other backward communities and Dalits in lurch and potentially in an angry state. If the fight becomes 2 way or 4 way instead of 3 way, the party could lose its advantage as both its Rajput and Muslim voters would become vulnerable to poaching

Opportunity – Being in the office with barely 1 year left, the party cannot do much. It can try to form a grand alliance with BSP, RLD and Congress. However other than this, there is a massive anger wave against the govt. for its negligence of none core voters and communities. Hence if they unite in favour of one party, its ouster is a formality. The only opportunity it has is to make Congress irrelevant and ensure that the fight remains 3 way between BSP, BJP and SP so that anti SP votes are divided between BSP and BJP

Threat – Emergence of a mega alliance between Congress, BSP, peace party and some other bit players seems to threaten the core SP votebank. It is possible that Muslims might shift to the mega alliance to keep BJP out of power and also result in the Rajput voters deserting it for BJP. In such a case the fight will become a 2 way with the SP being relegated to the 3^rd place for the 1^st time in Uttar Pradesh

3. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)

Other than 2007, BSP has never been able to form govt. on its own, nor has it emerged as the single largest party. 2007 has been the only year when BSP was able to get a clear majority on its own. Much of it was because it managed to get the swing voters and a small chunk of Upper Caste voters from BJP. This happened because of ample lawlessness that prevailed in the state due to the then SP govt. and BJP was not in a position to win (perception wise).

Strength - Party has a good track record of maintaining Law and Order (which is the biggest issue in the upcoming UP Polls). In Mayawati, the swing voters see a strong and credible CM face to challenge the incumbent govt. which is lacking in the other alternatives (BJP and Congress). Over the last decade or so, Mayawati has played important role in keeping BJP out of power and denying it opportunity to win as and when possible, getting it increased traction among Muslim voters.

Weakness – A small chunk of Upper Caste voters (mainly Brahmins) and Muslims voted for BSP in 2007 but there has been no instance before and after 2007 where these communities voted for the BSP in such large/decisive numbers. So it remains to be seen if 2007 was an aberration and BSP could hold onto voters from beyond its caste groups. Even within the 21% strong Dalit communities, not all the castes whole heartedly support the BSP and it usually gets 50 to 70% of the Dalit votes. It has a much smaller core votebank to start with unlike SP and BJP. Historically BSP has been an overestimated party by pollsters (with the exception of 2007). Hence much of BSP’s anticipated comeback would depend on whether it can attract non Dalit votes (UCs and Muslims) as it did in 2007

Opportunity – As explained earlier UP voters have low threshold for any party. BJP got a massive mandate in 2014 while SP in 2012 so 2017 could well belong to BSP by logic of turns and swings; more so because it has the most credible face among the 3 challengers to the incumbent govt. If BSP allies with Congress, RLD, Peace Party, AIMIM and some of the other small parties, it can get some of the UC votes, muslim votes and Jat votes and that in a 3 way fight should lead it home as it did in 2007. Although BSP would have to ensure that it contests on atleast 85% of the seats and does not leave more than 15% of the seats for its smaller allies like Congress, RLD etc as these parties would not have a very good strike rate. BSP’s alliance would be mostly to get the few % transferrable votes of these small parties and not to make them win seats which they cannot win

Threat – Even beyond Dalit, UC and Muslim voters BSP has nil traction among OBC voters which form the largest voting bloc in the state. Muslims and UC voters too, have never voted Mayawati enbloc. She got good chunks of them in 2007 but that was not the largest by any stretch as other parties SP and BJP got more Muslim and UC voters respectively than BSP did even in the 2007 elections. As SP and BJP are perceived to be much stronger players now, UCs might not go with BSP and prefer to side with BJP. Fallout of this would be Muslims will side with SP to stop a strong and resurgent BJP coming to power. OBCs, except for Yadavas might side with BJP as they feel sidelined with SP (a yadava-muslim only party) and cannot side with BSP which is still perceived to be a Dalit exclusive party in their view.

4. Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP)

BJP’s rise in early 90s in the state coincided with the fall of Congress. At the back of RJB movement, the party successfully ate into core votebank of Congress and made them its own. BJP has got more than 305 and even 405 votes on occasions, a feat matched by no other party in the state. At this stage the BJP has successfully sucked up the Hindu votebank of Congress and in last elections, a portion of Dalit voters of BSP and a big portion of Non Yadav OBCs from the SP. The upcoming elections is a story of how much can BJP hold (or not hold) from its historic high of ~44% votes it managed in 2014.

Strength – Modi Wave which helped BJP storm 73 out of 80 seats and helped it to come up 2^nd in the remaining 7 seats has still not receded completely. The undercurrent is still there. BJP after 2014 is a strong player and hence the UC voters, anti SP voters, anti BSP voters could well side with it due to it being the de facto opposition and natural claimant of these votes. Besides, the blatant negligence of Uttar Pradesh voters and treatment of Hindus as 3^rd rate citizens by incumbent govt has polarized the elections religiously which could go in BJP’s favour as the BSP and Congress are too scared to talk against this blatant discrimination against Hindus.

Weakness – BJP doesn’t have a strong organization to match the might of SP/BSP. Muslim, Yadav, Jatav Dalits are strongly bound to SP/BSP. Hence any potential vote BJP might hope to get must come from the remaining 65% voters. It starts at a natural disadvantage and hence needs to get most of the votes among some of the communities. There is no statewide leader with the popularity matching to Mayawati or Akhilesh Yadav. Kalyan Singh used to be popular in the 90s but the hour is late for him now. Post Kalyan Singh, BJP experimented with UC leadership, joint leadership (by projecting a galaxy of leaders) and failed. Lack of leadership or projecting several leaders could hamper its chances. BJP could lose focus by not concentrating on the non-Yadav OBCs, non-Jatav Dalits and non-Rajput UCs and instead trying to pamper each and every voting bloc, thereby not creating any core and differentiating factor. Finally BJP could risk making this poll a mandate on Modi, giving it a national colour in a state which has very low threshold and tolerance for incumbent parties. The low activity of most of these 73 MPs in last 2 years could not go down well with voters if the election is nationalized. BJP might take this risk to count on Modi’s image and ignore prevailing local issues which are extremely bad law and order, massive discrimination against Hindus and other sundry development issues.

Opportunity – BJP is in pole position and hence can take the risk to experiment. It has to maintain the local flavor of the elections and announce a credible CM face from any of the non-Yadav OBCs, non-Jatav Dalits and non-Rajput UCs. As of now Keshav Maurya seems to be the best bet.  Additionally if BJP also announces a Deputy CM like Dinesh Sharma (a 1^st in strategy) then it would have ensured fair representation to both OBCs and UCs. In addition 110-120 tickets to Brahmins, 40-50 to rest UCs. 150-160 tickets to non-Yadav OBCs and 60-70 tickets to non Jatav Dalits and the rest to other communities will give a proper social coalition message and BJP could romp home. BJP must also in words and actions show it cares for secularism and speak as well as act against targeted discrimination of Hindus by SP, BSP and Congress. Law & Order, Anti Appeasement and naming CM, Dy. CM as above could help BJP match its 2014 performance. Lack of all of these could make BJP plummet down to 2012 levels.

Threat – BJP has 73 lawmakers from UP in the Parliament, yet very few of them seem to be active. Lack of empathy of the party leadership both 1^st rung as well as 2^nd rung on issues of law and order, massive discrimination against Hindus could well paint BJP as an opportunist party which uses Hindus only during elections . Additionally a grand mega alliance of SP, BSP, RLD and Congress could create a Bihar like situation where BJP might struggle to overcome sheer arithmetic. However this seems unlikely and BJP if it falls could be due to reasons mentioned before that.

Situation as on June 2016

Overall BJP is in the pole position, despite witnessing a significant corrosion in its voteshare of 2014. As per my number crunching, some feedback from ground and a few opinion polls, this is the expected voteshares of each party and since more than 9 months remain for the polls, a lot could change depending on prospective alliances, CM figures, election issues and their respective handling and ticket distribution to candidates.

BJP – 220 (33.5%) 

SP – 88 (25%)

BSP – 73 (24.5%)

Congress – 11 (6.5%)

RLD – 5 (2.5%)

Others 7 (8%)