The nerve centre of the upcoming assembly elections, Uttar Pradesh is the key for the BJP to stamp its authority on national politics. With 403 assembly seats, the state has numerous factors at play, prime among them caste equations. The ruling saffron party will once again win with a majority, but the Samajwadi Party-led alliance was predicted to become the single largest opposition in the state, CNN-News18’s ‘poll of polls’ showed on Friday. The BJP will lose a significant chunk of over 60 seats that seems to be a massive climbdown for the party that stormed the 2017 elections and defeated the grand alliance of SP-BSP.
Pollsters have recorded opinion on the performance of four major contenders — BJP, SP alliance with RLD, BSP and Congress. The faces for the parties are incumbent chief minister Yogi Adityanath, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, BSP supremo Mayawati and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, respectively. The halfway mark for any party to gain majority is 202.
Nonetheless, the opinion polls predicted that the performance of the ruling BJP will heavily depend on how it balances caste equations in the run-up to the assembly elections. It looks as if the BJP’s efforts to accommodate caste fault lines under a broader Hindutva umbrella is under threat.
So far, 11 OBC legislators, including three ministers, have quit the BJP. Most of these rebel leaders have joined the SP-RLD alliance with their grouse directed more at Adityanath than the party’s top brass.
2017 results: The BJP had swept to power with 312 seats, while the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP managed 47. Mayawati’s BSP had to contend with 19 seats and the Congress was relegated to the fourth spot in the politically significant state with just seven seats. The tenure of the current UP assembly ends on May 14, 2022.
2022 PREDICTIONS
ABP NEWS-C VOTER: BJP 223-235, SP 145-157, BSP 8-16, Congress 3-7
INDIA TV: BJP 230-235, SP 160-165, BSP 2-5, Congress 3-7
REPUBLIC-P MARQ: BJP 252-272, SP 111-131, BSP 8-16, Congress 3-9
NEWSX-POLSTRAT: BJP 235-245, SP 120-130, BSP 13-16, Congress 4-5
TIMES NOW-VETO: BJP 227-254, SP 136-151, BSP 8-14, Congress 6-11
ZEE-DESIGNBOXED: BJP 245-267, SP 125-148, BSP 5-9, Congress 3-7
INDIA NEWS-JAN KI BAAT: BJP 226-246, SP 144-160, BSP 8-12, Congress 0-1
Where the parties stand
The biggest question, however, is whether the incumbent CM, Yogi Adityanath, will come back to power with a majority. While the opinion polls have tipped the scales in his favour, there are still some factors to keep in mind. In a state as big as UP, there are stories within stories and facts within facts. The BJP is the party to beat and if they win in UP again, they will be numero uno in 2024.
The narrative ahead of the UP elections seems to be about the BJP’s “social engineering of sorts” that not many are able to understand. It can be seen in the expansion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet, or even in the reshuffle of Yogi’s cabinet. Both have to do with more representation to the OBC community, which is the prime vote bank to woo for all parties. Ahead of the 2017 elections, the BJP’s outreach to non-Yadavs and non-Jatavs was seen as a masterstroke.
But the BJP had begun its quest to balance caste equation in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections itself despite the projection of an anti-incumbent vote. As Gujarat’s then CM, Narendra Modi walked into the spotlight it was seen a change in the party’s game plan in UP. There was a projection of Modi’s OBC background. From top to bottom, the BJP went in for a transformation with representation to different castes.
Another factor will be the implementation of welfare schemes on the ground — UP’s Covid-19 management, vaccination drive, and its infrastructure push.
Yogi Adityanath, however, has the most at stake. If he wins, how strong does he become? Will he be considered the PM face for the next general elections?
The ‘Thakur raj’ moniker, however, has been a thorn in Yogi’s side. While the data shows that fundamentally the BJP created a new caste coalition with non-Jatav Dalits and non-Yadav OBCs, it seems to be coming apart at the seams with some “discontent” among leaders of the backward castes. This is reflected in the desertion of several legislators from the OBC community, prominent faces among them.
Election schedule
The Uttar Pradesh assembly elections will be held in seven phases on the following dates: February 10 (Thursday), February 14 (Monday), February 20 (Sunday), February 23 (Wednesday), February 27 (Sunday), March 3 (Thursday) and March 7 (Monday).
The Uttar Pradesh election results 2022 will be declared on March 10 when counting of votes takes place along with four other poll-bound states – Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.
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