Researched by: Sara Varghese & Ankita Ghosh 

The UP election: The basic deets

The Assembly polls will be held over seven phases between February 10 and March 7. A total of 403 seats are at stake—of which the BJP currently holds a staggering 325. Its primary rivals are:

• Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party in alliance with 15 smaller parties.
• Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party which is fighting by its lonesome.
• Also a lone warrior: the Congress Party led in the state by Priyanka Gandhi—though she has not been named as its Chief Minister candidate.
• The rest—including Aam Aadmi Party, Trinamool, Left parties etc—will mainly act as “spoilers”—taking away votes from the big three.

To be clear, the BJP’s only real rival in the list above is the Samajwadi Party. The rest may play a role if a post-election alliance is needed to keep the BJP out of power.

Why this election matters: Uttar Pradesh is the biggest state in the country—and accounts for 80 Lok Sabha seats. And it lies at the heart of the BJP’s ‘Hindi heartland’ strategy—to sweep states like Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh etc to win at the Centre. So UP is key to the BJP’s future in the national elections slated for May 2024. 

Point to note: Uttar Pradesh voters are notoriously fickle—and almost never elect the same party twice in a row. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will be attempting to break a “35-year jinx” by winning twice in a row. The number of seats needed for a majority: 202. 

The big fat election pie

Professor Ashutosh Varshney broadly breaks up the voting blocs in Uttar Pradesh in the following way: 

“Basically, it is a 20-20-20-40 state: 20% upper caste, 20% Dalit, 20% Muslim and 40% OBC. Some communities are a bit smaller (Muslims, for example, are 19.2% of the state), others slightly larger (Dalits are roughly 21%), and the upper caste and OBC figures are sample-based estimates. But, overall, the 20-20-20-40 division is a good starting point for political analysis.”

Now, none of these categories are homogenous, and contain significant divisions that can work to a party’s advantage:

• Dalits are divided between Jatav and non-Jatavs—who have voted for the BJP in large numbers in the past.
• Muslim Shias often vote saffron unlike the Sunnis.
• Upper caste votes are split between Brahmins and Thakurs—who don’t always agree.
• And the Other Backward Castes—basically middle-level castes that resent the dominance of the upper castes—are divided between Yadavs and non-Yadavs.

The winning formula: requires slicing and combining these divisions. A party either sweeps up two of those ‘20%’ groups plus enough of the 40% OBCs—or vice versa.

• For example, Samajwadi party ruled with the help of Yadavs plus Muslims. BSP combined Dalit Jatavs with Muslims. 
• But these were small majorities—formed with just 30% of the vote share. 
• In 2017, the BJP monopolised the upper caste vote—and added non-Jatav Dalits. 
• More importantly, it also won 58% of the OBCs by mopping up all the non-Yadav voters—in comparison to Congress+SP’s 18% and BSP’s 11% of the OBC slice. 
• The result: the BJP won a whopping 40% of all votes.

Point to note: In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the party’s vote share rose to a dizzying 50%—thanks to the personal popularity of PM Modi. The BJP dominated every voting bloc—other than the core base of SP (Yadavs), BSP (Jatav Dalits) and, of course, Muslims. 

The BJP path to victory

The BJP plan is to preserve its winning alliance and strategy at all costs. And here are the big challenges and opportunities it faces.

One: The BJP’s appeal to Hindu pride is aimed at consolidating as much of the non-Muslim vote as possible. Hence, Adityanath’s claim that this is a “80% versus 20%” election—where the 20% refers to Muslims. While it is targeted primarily at the upper castes, the ‘mandir’ agenda is also attractive to others, as Arunabh Saikia notes:

“This ‘Hindutva-first’ approach may not be entirely without its strategic merits. While upper caste Hindus may be the most enthusiastic supporters of the BJP’s Hindutva project, OBCs and the Dalits are certainly not agnostic to it either. As I have seen while reporting across the state, the very public display of religiosity by the prime minister himself while inaugurating grand temple projects is a matter of pride across caste groups. Often (though not always) complaints about the government become markedly muted at the mention of temples.”

Disadvantage Akhilesh: Last time, the Muslim vote was split between SP and BSP. This time around, Akhilesh Yadav wants to avoid that fate by positioning himself as the only person who can topple the BJP. But he can’t alienate the OBCs by being seen as “appeasing” the Muslims—which is certainly not a problem for the BJP.

Two: Many forget that the BJP victory in the previous election had absolutely nothing to do with Yogi Adityanath. He was appointed as the CM by the BJP after the election—and was not popular at all. In fact, in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP swept UP thanks to Modi not Yogi. A survey conducted at the time showed that his government was losing popularity. And when asked to indicate their chief ministerial preference, 28% named Akhilesh Yadav compared to Adityanath’s 27%. So this will be the first test of his ability to carry an election—with the disadvantage of UP’s knee-jerk tendency to vote out sitting CMs. 

Advantage Akhilesh: Adityanath is an upper caste Thakur—and has ruled like one. He is seen as distant and unwilling to share the spoils of power with other castes—especially the OBCs. And his mishandling of the Hathras case—which involved a Dalit girl—is a great cause for worry, as well. As one OBC school teacher puts it: “We accepted Yogiji because he came as a monk wrapped in saffron but when he started imposing thakurwad in the garb of Hindutva, it irked our leaders.”

Three: The BJP cannot win in Uttar Pradesh without retaining the great share of OBC vote. Hence, the defection of prominent OBC leaders from the party—all of them from the critical non-Yadav bloc—has made headlines. As The Hindu notes, the non-Yadav voters have long resented the fact that the more affluent OBCs gobble up all the benefits of reservations. And they hoped the BJP would change that. But the saffron party has failed to deliver on two key demands: 

• One, a caste census that would dramatically alter how reservations are distributed (explained here). 
• Two, breaking up the OBC quota into subcategories—which again would benefit OBCs further down the ladder.

Add to that anger at Yogi’s upper caste bias—and there is potential for overturning the BJP apple cart. One election expert says: “The Hindu-Muslim narrative had become a bit of an overkill and as Akhilesh said, if Samajwadi and Ambedkarites could come together, we could be in for a surprise.”

Advantage unknown: Akhilesh Yadav warmly welcomed the non-Yadav OBC leaders defecting from the BJP—and has even promised a caste census. But those promises are difficult to trust or fulfill when your party’s core base is Yadav. As for the BJP, it distributed 60% of the tickets in its first list to OBC and Dalit candidates. And the UP government has been generously doling out benefits like candy—payments for farmers, free rations, pensions for widows etc. As one OBC farmer puts it:

“The good thing is that the targeted schemes reach the beneficiaries directly without the bichauliya (middleman)’s intervention. We get our entitlements in cash and kind without being cheated. This is a huge improvement over what previous governments did. I will go to the extent of saying that if you take the entitlements and don’t vote for the BJP, you are anti-national.”

The bottomline: The BJP built a monster majority by combining the promise of development and welfare benefits with blatant communalism. However, it is also true that the OBC defections have single-handedly changed the conversation to caste—which is hardly good news for a party that wins by banging the drum of Hindu pride. The real wildcard in Uttar Pradesh: The farmers.

Reading list

Hindustan Times analyses the various factors affecting the election. The Diplomat is upbeat on Akhilesh’s chances. News18 looks at why rural voters still like the BJP. Arunabh Saikia and the BBC News are sceptical about whether the OBC defections will count for much—while The Hindu explains why these leaders are rebelling. Whether you like Shekhar Gupta or not, you may want to watch this episode of Cut the Clutter—which demonstrates his keen grasp of the cynical calculations of caste.