New Delhi: The BJP was leading in 35 of 66 seats in western Uttar Pradesh around 6 pm Thursday evening, despite the year-long farmers’ agitation against the now-repealed farm laws that seemed to reflect a deep-set anger against the party among the predominantly agrarian voters. However, the SP was a close contender, leading in 31 seats in the region.
While the ruling party in UP managed to negate the pre-poll talks about its imminent defeat in western UP in the 2022 assembly elections, it did lose the kind of majority it had seen in the previous assembly elections. The BJP had won 51 seats in this region in the last assembly polls in 2017, after winning just 11 in 2012. The SP meanwhile improved upon its previous election performance here — it had won 15 seats in western UP in 2017. The Congress had won two, and the RLD and BSP, one each. Around 6 pm Thursday, RLD was leading in seven seats, while Congress and BSP were not leading in any seats here.
Jat anger against the BJP over the farm laws and sugarcane price dues proved to be not enough to cause the party’s defeat in West UP — the community forms a large chunk of the population here. But it is believed to have caused the party’s support base to shrink to a certain extent, helping the Jayant Chaudhary led Rashtriya Lok Dal (which mainly draws it support from the Jat community) and its alliance partner SP, gain ground.
Ultimately, however, it was the BJP’s claims of law and order improvement in the state under the Yogi Adityanath government and the beneficiary schemes (such as free ration and financial support for the poor and unemployed) introduced by the “double-engine” Modi and Yogi governments at the Centre and in the state that seemed to have kept the voters in the BJP’s favour.
CM Adityanath’s image of “bulldozer baba” (a satirical title used by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav to refer to the government’s use of bulldozers to demolish properties of alleged criminals) also found resonance, particularly among the non-dominant OBC castes. In several rallies in the area, Union Home Minister Amit Shah made a reference to how “anti-Romeo brigades” started by the Yogi government had led to the arrest of 14,454 people, and claimed it had helped bring down crime against women in the state by 41.4 percent. The CM himself claimed property worth Rs 18,000 crore, belonging to alleged gangsters, had been seized.
The party also effectively used the memory of the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots (during the tenure of the SP government in the state) to polarise sentiments, as it had done in 2017. During a door-to-door campaign in Kairana, Amit Shah met Hindu families who were allegedly forced to migrate in the aftermath of the riots, and had since returned, and spoke of an improved law and order situation under the Yogi government.
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Caste dynamics
The BJP successfully worked out the caste dynamics in the region, managing to reach voters across backward castes — such as Saini, Kushwaha, Kurmi and Jatav — by promoting leaders from these caste groups. With an eye on the Jatav Dalit community (which forms the bulk of BSP chief Mayawati’s vote-bank), CM Adityanath revamped the state SC/ST Commission last year, appointing former BJP MLA Rambabu Harit (a Jatav) as its chairman. Another Jatav, Lalji Nirmal, had been made chairman of the UP Dalit Finance Corporation earlier.
Meanwhile, Jaswant Singh Saini, who was made chairman of the Uttar Pradesh State Commission for Backward Classes last year, was also a star campaigner for the BJP in western UP. Uttarakhand Governor Baby Rani Maurya also resigned from the constitutional post to contest the assembly polls for the BJP, allowing the party to promote her as a Dalit face.
Not only this. Amit Shah, while campaigning in western UP, even held out an olive branch to rival Jayant Chaudhary in an attempt to reach Jat voters, suggesting that the RLD chief (by aligning with the SP) had chosen the “wrong home” and indicated that he was welcome to join forces with the BJP.
This also helped the party woo Hindu backward caste voters here.
“The election had become polarised due to BJP’s high-pitched campaign, branding SP as a party of Muslims and Yadavs, and an accomplice in riots (against Hindus),” said Vivek Kumar, professor of social sciences at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University.
“The memory of the Akhilesh regime was one factor (in favour of the BJP), but largely, Hindu voters were not divided by the agrarian issue and other day-to-day issues due to polarisation. Modi’s direct benefit schemes also helped the party. Except for a few sections of Jats, other OBC castes backed the BJP in western UP,” he added.
Jat factor didn’t help RLD
While Jats reportedly form 18 per cent of the population in some districts of western UP, and the BJP has in the past aligned with the RLD here with an eye on Jat votes, the Jayant Chaudhary led party hasn’t had a very good track record in elections since 2014 (following the Muzaffarnagar riots, which led to polarisation of votes).
According to Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) data, in the 2012 UP assembly polls, only seven per cent Jats voted for the BJP. The number went up to 77 per cent in 2014 (Lok Sabha polls), and 91 per cent in 2017 (UP polls).
The BJP had 11 Jat MLAs in 2017, while four ministers in the Yogi Adityanath government were from the community.
In comparison, the RLD had won only one seat, Chhaprauli, in 2017. But this MLA too switched to the BJP in 2018. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, three Jats became BJP MPs.
The RLD’s vote share in the seats it contested was the highest — 26.82 per cent — in 2002. Evem then, however, its vote share in the total valid votes polled was a mere 2.48 per cent. The party’s vote share in the seats contested in 2007 was 5.76 per cent. In 2012, the RLD allied with Congress, and won nine of the 46 seats it contested.
The party had its best Lok Sabha election performance in 2009, when it won five seats in UP, in an alliance with the BJP. The party got three seats in the 2004 parliamentary elections, but draw blank in 2014 and 2019.
The SP, in its list of candidates for the first and second phases of the UP assembly polls, had left 33 seats for the RLD, while five SP candidates fought on the RLD symbol, hand-pump. The alliance had fielded 16 Jat candidates, the same number as for the BJP.
The BJP had also banked on splitting Muslim votes and a Dalit-OBC polarisation, as well as on the support of a sizeable chunk of young Jat voters.
The BSP fielding 28 Muslim candidates in western UP against the SP’s Muslim candidates was also expected to split the support for SP, and thus work in favour of the BJP.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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