Why Congress, and not SP-BSP, is prime target of Modi and Yogi in UP

BJP's 2019 hopes rest hugely on a 22% group in UP, which helped it bag 42% vote share and 71 seats in 2014. But which group is it, and what is Congress up to?

Jyotiradtiya Scindia and Priyanka Gandhi with Rahul Gandhi | Twitter/@JM_Scindia

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s war cry in Uttar Pradesh is: “UP hee jitayega”, which loosely translates to “it is UP that will ensure our victory’ in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Quite surprisingly, however, the duo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath is targeting the Congress more aggressively, and not the mahagathbandhan, or grand alliance, of once adversaries Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party. The Congress’s position in Uttar Pradesh is such that with two phases of polling done, it is being said that if the trio of Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Jyotiraditya Scindia manage to take the Congress’s tally beyond single digit mark in the state, it will be a huge achievement for them.

So what explains the Bharatiya Janata Party’s focus on choosing the Congress as its main rival in the Hindi heartland state, which sends the maximum members – 80 – to the Lok Sabha, when political analysts are of the view that any loss for the BJP in UP would mean a direct gain for the mahagathbandhan?

Besides the fact that the BJP wants to project a pan-Indian clash between Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi, there’s another significant factor behind this game plan of targeting the Congress: the caste combination of Uttar Pradesh.

Caste has always been a dominant factor in the electorally crucial state. Despite the current atmosphere of communal polarisation in the country, caste is still a deciding factor in most contests. Developing political equations in UP indicate that division of votes will not be as simple as it is being discussed. This time, the main electoral battle in UP is being fought for a group: savarna, or the upper castes, which until now had not been explicitly marked as a “vote bank” for or by any political party. Despite caste-based polarisation in UP since the early 1990s, savarna votes have remained fragmented. Earlier, they used to be the main base for the Congress with the BJP eating into its share in later years. Both the SP and the BSP have their own core vote banks and neither the BJP nor the Congress have found it easy to break them.

In such circumstances, the Congress’s decision to field candidates from 73 seats is being seen as a ploy to dent the BJP’s savarna base. According to the official survey, the upper caste population in UP is about 22 per cent and the BJP’s high hopes in the slogan – “UP hee jitayega” – are linked to this figure. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, a larger chunk of this 22 per cent was responsible for the BJP getting 42 per cent votes and 71 seats in the state. In that election, the combined vote share of the SP and the BSP (the parties were not in alliance) was also around 42 per cent. But the two are not together and any slice in the BJP’s 22 per cent pie can be catastrophic to the party.

Now, let us have a broad look at the Congress’s list of candidates and its campaign strategy. It is quite clear that the Congress is bent on luring away a bigger share of this 22 per cent savarna vote base.  For example, in Gautam Budh Nagar, the Congress fielded its young gun Arvind Kumar Singh against the BJP’s sitting MP Mahesh Sharma and BSP’s Satvir Nagar. Locally, the fight was projected as “Thakur vs. Brahmin.” Similarly, a Brahmin candidate was put up against Gen (retd) V.K. Singh in Ghaziabad in a bid to split savarna votes. To add to this, even the SP had fielded a savarna candidate, Suresh Bansal.

In Meerut, the same story played out. The BJP gave ticket to its incumbent MP Rajendra Agarwal while the Congress countered his presence by fielding Harendra Agrawal. Rumors abound that the titanic clash between these two Baniya leaders has badly split the savarna vote, and that the BSP candidate, Haji Mohammad Yakub, would prove to be the main beneficiary. The BSP is already in a solid position on this seat, which has five lakh Muslim and 3.5 lakh Dalit voters. Similarly, in Mathura, BJP’s Hema Malini has been challenged by Congress’s Mahesh Pathak, the president of Tirth Purohit Sangh, who has a huge clout among the Brahmin voters.

Let’s now move towards the eastern region of the state. Rajesh Mishra and Devvrat Mishra are the Congress’s candidates from Salempur and Jaunpur, respectively. Both are capable of making a huge dent in BJP’s savarna vote bank. Similarly, in Ghazipur, BJP’s Manoj Sinha is facing a tough challenge from Congress’s Ajit Kushwaha, who is claiming support of 1.75 lakh Kushwaha voters in the constituency. Kushwahas have traditionally voted for the BJP but it’s likely going to be different this time with the Congress’ candidate being the son of Babu Singh Kushwaha, a well-known leader and former minister in the UP government.

Savarna voters also play a big role on prestigious seats of Lucknow and Varanasi. For the latter, whose incumbent is PM Modi, the Congress is yet to announce its candidate. In Lucknow, which is held by Union home minister Rajnath Singh, however, the Congress has deputed Acharya Pramod Krishnan, a TV debate veteran whose fame as the head of Kalkipeeth and social position as a spiritual guru is sure to affect BJP’s vote share. The SP-BSP alliance, which is fielding Poonam Sinha – also a savarna – is hoping to benefit from yet another Thakur-Brahmin clash. Poonam Sinha’s husband, former BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha, is a Kayastha while Poonam herself belongs to a Sindhi family. Both these castes have a good presence in Lucknow. While the Kayastha numbers around 2.5 lakh, the Sindhi community also has more than one lakh voters. With the help of the SP and BSP’s traditional voters, Poonam Sinha can pose a serious challenge to Rajnath Singh in case of a split of the savarna votes.

Although defeating PM Modi in Varanasi is a monumental task, one could dare say even impossible, the Congress is aiming for a close fight. Amid the ever-growing rumours that the Congress could announce Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as its cahllnege to Modi, there are also talks about a ‘mahant’ of a famous temple in the city being a possible contender. The name, though not made known, is of someone considered to be ‘a liberal Brahmin’. Interestingly, it has never been easy to gauge the shift in the mood, if any, of people in a city where 2.5 lakh Brahmins co-inhabit with 3 lakh Muslims.

Ever since Yogi Adityantah – a Rajput by birth – took the chief minister’s chair of Uttar Pradesh, stories of Thakur-Brahmin clashes for dominance are buzzing in UP’s power corridor. The BJP’s Lucknow office is rife with stories of Brahmins being neglected under the current regime, both central as well as in UP. Acts such as denying tickets to veteran Brahmin leaders like Murali Manohar Joshi and Kalraj Mishra have added some credit to these stories. The sentiments were further hurt when Ambedkar Nagar MP Hariom Pandey and Sant Kabir Nagar MP Sharad Triptahi (infamous for beating an MLA with shoes) too were left high and dry. Hariom is believed to be so annoyed with the BJP leadership that he has leveled serious allegation against the party that he had been asked to pay money to get the ticket. Hariom has also gone public with his accusations that the BJP was neglecting Brahmin leadership.

Overall, the Congress is looking to benefit from this situation. Its intention is to dent this 22 per cent savarna vote share and demolish the base of BJP’s 42 per cent share it received in UP in the last general elections. The alliance of the SP, the BSP and the Rashtriya Lok Dal too can hope to benefit in seats where it has fielded a savarna candidate. Everywhere else, the upper caste votes will be shared by the BJP and the Congress, and the latter’s ability to wean a larger chunk of this vote will mean danger for the BJP, which could end up losing more seats than it is currently anticipated. This strategy may not yield any large number of seats for the Congress, it can queer the pitch for the BJP. For the Congress, any damage to the BJP in UP is sufficient to emerge as a big player in Delhi. And so, while the BJP seems hard-pressed to confront this two-frontal attack from the mahagathbandhan as well as the Congress, it is the likelihood of the bigger damage it could face from the Congress that makes it chalk up a strategy focused largely on the Nehru-Gandhi family.

The author is a senior journalist.

This article is translated from Hindi. The original can be read here. Views are personal.