The BJP lost 29 seats in Uttar Pradesh. It fell short of a majority by 32 seats. That’s why the road to Delhi runs through it. And if you understand what went wrong in UP, you will understand why BJP’s fortunes took a nosedive in 2024.
A quick recap of the numbers
We’re not going to rehash individual contests. Here’s a quick reminder of the final tally: The BJP could only manage 33 seats—losing 29 seats since 2019. The NDA total was 36. On the INDIA side, the campaign was led by the Samajwadi Party—which got a hefty haul of 37 seats—gaining 32 seats since 2019!! Congress’ fortunes improved from one to six. The total INDIA haul: 43.
To be fair: In terms of lost vote share, UP wasn’t the worst. The BJP only haemorrhaged 8.61%—compared to 12.1% in Haryana and 9.83% in Rajasthan.
Ok, so why did the BJP lose Uttar Pradesh? To paraphrase Anuj Kumar in The Hindu: INDIA’s rozi, roti, and reservation beat the saffron party’s Ram, ration, and shasan (governance). Let’s break that down a bit.
#1: Caste beat religion (How INDIA did it)
The BJP playbook is to attack Muslims and woo OBCs and Dalits—thereby consolidating the Hindu vote. Uttar Pradesh is the janmabhoomi of this strategy. But the caste math didn’t fall into those neat religious lines this time.
The caste math in UP: 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.” A 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.
Dalits are divided between Jatav—who vote BSP—and non-Jatavs—who were successfully wooed by the BJP. Now add upper caste voters—and all non-Yadav OBC voters—and you end up with a dizzying 40% of the votes—as BJP did in 2019.
What happened in 2024: Samajwadi Party’s appeal was limited to Yadavs—the caste of its ruling family. This time, it took non-Yadav OBC votes away from the BJP. Now add a great chunk of Mayawati’s Jatav Dalit voters—who also defected to INDIA. Her party’s vote share sank from 19.43% in 2019 to 9.39%. She also lost Muslims—who consolidated behind the Opposition. Finally: Extremely Backward Communities.
Revisiting Varshney’s formula: INDIA took a great part of OBC vote (40%), mopped up Muslims (20%)—and made enough of a dent in BJP’s Dalit vote share (20%).
How they did it: The credit mostly belongs to SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s “PDA strategy”—which targeted the Pichada (backward), Dalit (oppressed), and Alpsankhyak (minority) communities. Until now, Samajwadi Party had a Muslim+Yadav constituency—unwilling or unable to attract Dalit votes. The reason: The most brutal atrocities against Dalit villagers are committed by upper caste Yadavs.
SP’s golden tickets: Of the 32 Samajwadi candidates, only four were Yadavs— all of them in the first family. Akhilesh instead targeted the BJP’s base: 27 tickets to non-Yadav OBCs and 6 to Jatav Dalits and 10 to non-Jatav Dalits—not just in seats reserved for them either. Example, it was a Dalit candidate—Awadesh Prasad—who beat the BJP man in a general seat—Faizabad (home of the mandir).
Akhilesh also focused on a new generation of political dynasties—scions with a very different mindset, like himself. For example, Iqra Choudhary—the 29-year old graduate of Lady Shri Ram and SOAS, London ran in the seat where her mother Tabassum lost in 2019. You can see scenes of joy at her victory below:
About that Mayawati factor: Lost vote share aside, BSP also hurt the Samajwadi Party in at least 16 Lok Sabha seats—where the BSP candidates got more votes than the victory margin of the BJP. If those votes had gone to SP, the BJP would only have won 19 seats—as opposed to 33. Also this: The BSP fielded 35 Muslim candidates—which was seen as a deliberate bid to split minority votes.
As for the BJP: Amit Shah opted for the tried-and-tested strategy of building a coalition of smaller parties—each likely to mop up votes of their caste in targeted regions in the state. It didn’t work this time. BJP allies only won three seats in total.
The other sabotage angle: UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s supporters are putting the blame for this debacle squarely on Shah’s candidate selection. OTOH, losing BJP candidates suggest there was a conspiracy to deep-six their campaigns:
I had apprehensions over something going wrong some 15 days before the polling…. It is a fact that brakes were slammed on some of the development works I had started in my constituency… Those responsible for placing roadblocks in the path of PM Modi’s mission (of 400-plus seats) would be identified and the issue would be put before the party organisation and the top leadership
It will be interesting to see how it plays out in the state elections in 2027. Even more intriguing: “Party insiders feared that the “disastrous” performance could spark an ugly blame game between Shah and Adityanath, both said to be aspiring to become
Modi’s successor.”
The bigger picture: Of course, you can read the outcome as the triumph of caste arithmetic or of a politics of inclusiveness—it was likely a bit of both. But it most certainly trumped Hindutva as a strategy.
#2: Jobs beat welfare (Why it worked)
Elections are not won by simply picking the right alchemy of castes. The OBC, Dalit and Extremely Backward Communities voted not just for representation—but also economic justice.
Jobs not dole? As we noted in the case of Bihar, one reason for Modi’s popularity is that he is seen as the great benefactor—doling out rice, health care, and gas cylinders to the poor. This is also why the BJP has been indifferent to increasing voter anxiety about unemployment and inflation––named as top two issues for 60% of the Hindi belt voters.
In UP, voters had especially good cause to worry:
Official estimates show that the UP economy performed poorly from 2017 to 21 under the Yogi Adityanath government. The gross state domestic product (GSDP) rose at a compound growth rate of merely 1.95% per annum, and per capita income increased by 0.43%. In contrast, the growth rate was 6.92% during the 2012-17 SP government and under the 2007-2012 Mayawati government GDP grew to 7.28% as against the 6.10% target.
Tone deaf sarkar: The government compounded these miseries by introducing the Agniveer program—which turned lifetime jobs in the military into short-term contracts. There seemed no interest in cracking down on leaked exam papers for government jobs. In UP, the fiasco affected 4.82 million aspirants applying for 60,244 jobs in the police. In sum, the government was not creating opportunities—and it was taking away the few opportunities available to the working poor.
Point to note: Yesterday, two key NDA allies—including Nitish Kumar’s JD(U)—openly demanded a review of the Agniveer program.
The Ayodhya example: The BJP has focused on big ticket projects that look good on TV—but don’t necessarily create real jobs for Indians. The Ram Mandir was supposed to turn Ayodhya into a tourist mecca—with booming land prices. Except the government bulldozed people’s homes and shops to make room for a grand Ram Path leading to the temple. One of the many bitter residents says: “Ram hamare aaradhya hain (We worship Ram), but how will we survive if you take away our livelihoods?”
And of course, the Constitution: The BJP MLA who lost from Faizabad is Lallu Singh—the bright spark who asked voters for 400 seats to change the Constitution. At least three other BJP candidates echoed that same line—enough to cause instant panic—and rage among Dalits. Any talk of meddling with the samvidhan is a direct assault on Dalit identity and rights:
He attributed the desire to change the Constitution to chuaa chhut, or caste discrimination. “It is because the Constitution has been written by Babasaheb, who belonged to a lower caste,” he said, referring to BR Ambedkar, who served as the chairperson of the committee that drafted the Indian Constitution, “that these people don’t like it.
“They don’t like that the Constitution provides for reservations [in government jobs and educational institutions],” he continued. “That’s why they want to change it.”
The bottomline: This election has mapped the limits of many things—Modi’s charisma, Hindutva’s appeal and the Indian voter’s patience. The BJP will be wise to take note.
Reading list
The Hindu has the best big picture analysis of the results. For more on the social justice angle, read Sudha Pai in the Indian Express—or its coverage of Ayodhya as a case in point. This Scroll ground report—written before the election—captures anxieties about the Constitution. Read The Print for how caste trumped religion. The Telegraph has more on how BSP played spoiler and the internal strife between Yogi and Delhi.
