UP Elections 2017 - BJP's stunning landslide victory in UP & story behind it's making

On March 11^th Uttar Pradesh (UP) delivered the biggest landslide to any single party since 1977. . The aftershocks of this massive landslide for BJP will be felt for years to come.During my conversations with folks who had connections with workers inside BJP, I was told that this time around they were quietly hopeful of netting 250+ seats, a number which I myself was a bit skeptical of. The whopping number (325 seats i.e.80+% of all seats) of seats won by the BJP & its smaller allies was surely beyond the expectations of even the most ardent BJP supporter.  The genesis of this political tsunami or what some in the media have called “Tsu- NaMO” is a fascinating story in itself.

The story begins not as one might expect in Lucknow (capital of Uttar Pradesh) but rather 555 kms away in New Delhi on a cold & foggy morning (typical winter weather in Delhi). This however wasn’t just any other day in the nation’s capital but was January 26, 2015, India’s 65^th Republic Day. It has been a tradition that on this day a high level foreign dignitary is invited to be the chief guest for the annual Republic Day parade in India. In the early years the chief guests tended to be pretty much political “lightweights” either from regional neighbors or 3^rd world nations. Mind you the recent invitee list was impressive with names like King Abdullah (2006) Presidents Vladimir Putin (Russia) in 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy (France) in 2008 & Lee Myung Bak (South Korea) & Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (Japan) in 2014. But Narendra Modi who had just completed 8 months in office after coming to power in huge landslide victory in 2014 managed pull off the biggest scoop of them all (in terms of chief guests for Republic Day) when he succeeded in getting Barack Obama (then sitting US president) to be the chief guest in the annual Republic Day parade. This being the first parade since the change of guard in New Delhi plus the maiden visit of Barack Obama to India led to huge frenzy/hype in the media with wall to wall coverage of the event. Modi turned up at the parade in monogrammed, pinstriped suit. The suit instantly made headlines because of a specific feature - its stripes were made of repetitions of a single motif: the Prime Minister's name, Narendra Damodardas Modi. The narrative of this historic meet was to be the increased bilateral co-operation in various areas such as trade, security, terrorism, etc. between the world’s largest democracies & gradual warming of ties between 2 nations that had once an adversarial relationship during the Cold War. All this was turned on its head once sections of India’s now (famous/infamous) sensationalist media’s focused only the suit. If you ask most people what they remember the most from that day, the answer would neither ne Obama’s visit nor what happened when they met but just the suit that Modi was wearing. Modi tried to put to rest this “suit controversy” a month later when the suit was auctioned off for charity however this ghost would come back to haunt him later.

Fast forward to April 2015, Rahul Gandhi while participating in a debate on agriculture crisis in the Lok Sabha, openly mocked Narendra Modi saying “yours is a Suit-Boot ki Sarkar", a reference to the PM's monogrammed suit. He alleged that the BJP government had frozen minimum support price for crops and had diluted the land acquisition law to weaken the farmers in favor of industrialists. The speech (one of the very few Rahul Gandhi had given to this point: just 5 in 11 years) was one of the most hard hitting blows delivered to the Modi government. The opposition’s allegations against Modi such as “Only few big industrialists have benefitted from Modi’s rule in Gujarat & not the common man” which earlier during the 2014 campaign had failed to stick to Modi had now hit close to home beginning to dent Modi’s image. Rahul’s speech was looking to stress on Modi being "pro-business" and "anti-poor/anti-farmer". Modi government was immediately put on the back foot by this attack. BJP was in a minority in Upper House Rajya Sabha where they required support from other parties to pass any type of legislation. The Land Acquisition Bill had given the opposition something to rally around against Modi. Sensing the stiff opposition to this bill driven by these “suit boot ki Sarkar” comments, Modi had to (in one of the few major pullbacks) drop the Land Acquisition Bill by end of August 2015. Electorally also the juggernaut set in motion with the win in 2014 & in state elections thereafter came a screeching halt with the loss in Delhi (Feb 2015) & more importantly in Bihar (Nov 2015) in that same year. These defeats were huge setback for Modi, especially the Land Acquisition Bill which was one of the several “big bang” reforms he wanted to implement to speed up investment, growth & development in India. He knew that he had to immediately shed this moniker associated with him of being “pro-business” both for the good of his & BJP’s electoral future otherwise both of them would be finished. There was no better than person than Modi who understood this newer “aspirational” & young (India 2/3 of India’s population is below 35 years of age) Indian voter who was seeking a betterment of their lives currently stuck in poverty and/or hardship. Any failure in helping the poor would mean a possible desertion by the same “aspirational” voters that brought him to power in 2014.

He then started to work earnestly to transform his image to overcome this negative perception of his. He started to work on multiple schemes (some of which were started before 2015) geared towards the poor which formed a huge chunk of the Indian electorate. Most famous of them was the Jan Dhan Yojna which was to open bank accounts for all, especially the poor people who had no access to banking system before. In the past money from welfare schemes used to doled out to the poor through actual transfer of cash but what used to happen in practice is that the corrupt middle man through which money was routed to the poor took his own “cut” short changing the needy recipient. Now by directly depositing money into the bank accounts of the poor, Modi has removed the need of the poor to “grease the palms” of the corrupt middle man to receive their benefits. Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana & Suraksha Bima Yojana were just 2 small examples where BPL(before poverty line) families could get life & accident insurance of upto 2 lakhs at highly nominal rates of just a few rupees per month. One of these schemes which has been a silent factor in the huge win in UP is Ujjwala Yojana. It is a scheme where BPL families got free LPG connections. This has been proven to be a big hit with the womenfolk in UP where 5+ million got benefit of this scheme. Now that LPG cylinders are very common in the cities, we tend to underestimate the hardships with associated with running an old wood fired “chullah”: laboring every day to collect wood, inhaling the toxic smoke that comes with burning it, etc. By getting these LPG connections these women were able to break free of this for the first time in their lives. All these schemes slowly built up goodwill for the Modi regime over the course of its current term. But the master stroke at the end was of course demonetization. A problem described by people from all walks of life which affects them the most in India today is the rampant & unchecked corruption. During the last 3 years of UPA-II government hardly few months went by without any new corruption scandal breaking out. However no one inside or outside government had any idea on how to tackle the menace of corruption. Modi vowed to tackle this head on during the campaign in 2014 which many thought to be a hollow promise to which was made to simply get elected. Opposition leaders constantly reminded him of his promise in 2014 to deposit 15lakhs in account of every Indian by forcing all the black money stashed abroad to be returned to India. On Nov 8^th 2016 by demonetizing the 1,000 & 500 rupee notes overnight he sent a clear message to the masses that the status quo will not be maintained & that his government is taking concrete steps to tackle this issue head on. There were issues like the goals of doing this as explained by the government changed quite a few times a.k.a. “shifting of the goalposts”. In addition the economic benefits of demonetization are debatable due to various factors as majority 97% of the cash found its way back to the banks, etc. but the social implications are not at debatable. As an experiment when I was in Ahmedabad & Mumbai in January this year I tried to get a sense of mood of the people post demonetization. I tried to strike up conversations about it with people from all walks of life from businessmen, retirees, white collar workers, servants, drivers, etc. The striking feeling I got that what I read in the newspapers & online while in the US regarding massive anger among people, opposition leaders protesting everywhere, etc. was completely divorced from the reality on the ground where it was massively popular with few exceptions here & there. Many economists & opposition politicians cried foul about the massive shock to the Indian economy & pain felt by especially the poor. But they missed the general point that this move was wildly popular was the general masses. The masses especially the poor saw the corrupt businessman/politicians/mafia nexus as the source of all corruption. In their mind this was a lesson taught to the corrupt by Modi to set them straight & hence they were willing to bear some short term pain for it. After decades of suffering, apathy & inaction on corruption, Modi was the first politician taking firm action to solve the issue (inspite of what the actual benefit/result was). This is similar to Brexit & Trump election phenomenon where the masses tired of the status quo support radical moves which “gives the appearance of someone wanting to change things around ” even if it doesn’t always lead to any actual benefit on the ground. As I mentioned in my blog before the UP results that with this one Robin Hood type master stroke plus other schemes for the poor Modi had overnight solidified the change in BJP’s image from a middle class/traders/businessmen party to a pro poor party. This was meant to win over the poorest of the poor who weren’t traditionally BJP supporters. All these welfare schemes + demonetization + surgical strikes across the border with Pakistan have gradually built up the narrative of Modi being a resolute leader working for the betterment of the nation with unwavering zeal. On the ground in UP where citizens on being asked by various reporters (across various media outlets) on why did they liked Modi the most common answer by far was that  “Modi is a decisive leader”. This was a stark contrast to some previous leaders who made simply made promises but did very little once elected. All the moves by Modi’s government  looks much different from the so called “policy paralysis” in 2^nd half of UPA-II government which was beset with scandals & everyone including bureaucrats scared of taking any major decisions for fear of being implicated rightly or wrongly at a later point in time.

 As it rightly said that even the most successful politician needs a great backroom operations manager. Amit Shah is the “Chanakya” to Modi’s “Chandragupta”. He led the massive mobilization of BJP/RSS Cadre on the ground in UP planning meticulously right from the booth level up to each constituency. This level of detailed organizational planning missing from any of the other opposition party puts them at a serious disadvantage when trying to turn out the vote. In 70 seats where BJP was weak he “imported” leaders from other parties to fight elections mind you in face of fierce opposition from local BJP leaders. With the traditional BJP upper caste vote solidly behind him solidly he identified the weakness of the opposition’s coalition’s (non-Yadav OBC’s for Samajwadi Party) & (non-Jatav Dalit’s for Bahujan Samajwadi Party). Both Akhilesh & Mayawati rode to power in Lucknow based on broad support from OBC’s & Dalit’s respectively. However once in power their own sub-caste’s (Yadav’s & Jatav Dalits) have to seem to be benefited the most (at expense of other sub castes) in many people’s eyes. This leads to resentment among the non-Yadav OBC’s & non Jatav Dalit’s that this was a new form of discrimination against them (which in the past was done to them by upper castes). As Shekhar Gupta has pointed out that new young Indian voter is no longer bound by caste & he wants to break free of this mold & aspire for a betterment of his lifestyle. Amit Shah tapped into this anger by fielding a record 150 non-Yadav OBC’s & several non-Jatav Dalits. This social engineering packaged along with Modi’s popularity & OBC credentials created an unbeatable combination. Modi & Shah also tapped into another type of discrimination anger: favoring of Muslims for various benefits by the previous SP government. With the “shamshan/kabristan” comments from Modi reverse polarization was achieved as people perceived that the SP was openly favoring Muslims at the cost of the remaining Hindus. This result overall was seen by many as a backlash against the identity politics practiced by both SP & BSP who when in power favored a few at the expense of all others. BJP knew that with 20% of Muslim population never voting for it + hardly any support from the BSP’s 10% Jatav Dalit & 10% SP’s Yadav OBC’ base it had to simply capture a majority of the remaining 60% of the electorate (which they did by winning 40% vote share). For the last 30 years with the mushrooming of innumerable regional parties in the mutli-polar contests the threshold for majority was much lower & hence one won elections by simply consolidating the votes among your main communities/castes + disenchanted floating voters from others. Amit Shah by creating this “rainbow coalition” across castes means in a form of a Hindu consolidation has blown up this old school “Mandal school politics” of pandering to just your own communities which doesn’t work anymore. Also importantly gone are the days when BJP simply asked for votes simply in name of Ram Mandir. BJP knows that with the issue stuck in courts there was no need for this to be the main focus of campaigning as they would not be able to fulfil it & at the end of their term pay the price for not fulfilling their promise.

 Akhilesh has marketed himself a popular leader pursuing development above the stereotypical lawlessness associated with his SP party. But he simply couldn’t overcome the years of built up negative perception of “goondagardi” of his government & many ministers. His alliance with Congress failed to materialize any tangible benefits as the Cong vote share simply collapsed. Many SP leaders now question the benefit of going with Congress in the first place as they didn’t got many votes transferred from Congress to their kitty. Talking to a friend about this SP – Cong alliance I jokingly said that “25 + 0.5 is still only 25.5” i.e. not much difference to SP by adding the negligible Congress votes. Akhilesh if he reforms his party & win over the intra family squabbles can surely comeback to power some day in future as he is young & the future of the Samajwadi Party. Mayawati’s future on the other hand is bleak. She has failed to develop the next generation of leaders, remains inaccessible from both media & her supporters, and spends most of her time in New Delhi rather than on ground in Uttar Pradesh. Add to that the fact that she got routed so decisively in UP this time around that she lacks the requisite no. of MLA’s to renominate her to Rajya Sabha when her term ends in 2018. Her ranting in a press conference about EVM’s being supposedly hacked by BJP without offering any proof was downright bizarre. Her Dalit base is being slowly poached away by BJP while her experiment of giving tickets to Muslims to woo them to her side also failed miserably. The Mandal politics of getting votes based just based on caste of SP & BSP have been neutralized to a large extent. Modi & Amit Shah have been successfully creating a pan Hindu coalition (vs BJP being a just upper caste party in the past) breaking across all caste barriers. The worst situation that any opposition party finds today in is the Congress party. They have lost elections after elections in the past 5 years (barring a few exceptions like Punjab) & are getting dangerously close to getting wiped off the map in major states across India. Except North East they control only 3 states: Punjab, Himachal Pradesh & Karnataka which goes to polls next year. They have been supplanted by BJP as the new pan India national party. Their base is massively shrinking with passage of time & there is no section of the society which today then can call as reliable voters for Congress. Their base which at one time used to be the poor is being lured away in all directions by other parties: by Modi with his new pro welfare schemes & by Aam Aadmi party by its promise of free electricity & water.  They can’t seem to be giving out the standard response “introspection is required” after every successive loss. The party appears completely rudderless without the stewardship of their president Sonia Gandhi. They are failing on providing even a credible opposition to the policies of Modi government like demonetization, etc. Sonia’s ill health preventing her from campaigning in UP this time around foretells that she might not be even around in 2019 for the next Lok Sabha elections. Hence the burden of dragging the party out of the doldrums simply rests with Rahul Gandhi who has been proven until now to be a completely ineffective leader. Many people including some leaders in his own party simply don’t understand his infrequent engagements in discussions on important issues (followed by long periods of silence on sidelines), lack of focus & vision, bizarre comments like “being little down in UP “when in fact they were even behind the tiny Apna Dal outfit in terms of seats, unexplained absences away from party affairs & reluctance to lead from the front. One of the most interesting stories which will touch upon most of the above factors was when the ex-Congress politician Himanta Biswa Sarma went to meet Rahul Gandhi. Himanta Biswa Sarma was the de-facto no. 2 in Assam govt. below Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi. Initially both men were close but started drift apart due to rising popularity of Himanta & Gogoi trying to promote his son as his successor. Himanta went to meet Rahul Gandhi to implore to him that Tarun Gogoi who was fighting 15 years of anti-incumbency was deeply unpopular in Assam. He stressed that to win elections again Gogoi needed to be replaced by someone else which necessarily didn’t have to be him (Himanta). Rahul during the meeting apparently didn’t even listen to him & according to Himanta was busy playing with his dogs, feeding them biscuits & looking at his phone. Himanta frustrated with this, quit the Congress party. Amit Shah brought him over to the BJP where he worked to thrash the Congress in the assembly elections last year & subsequently also worked towards the BJP’s maiden win in Manipur last week. The fact that the Congress candidate stood 4^th in Amethi portends to the fact that it wouldn’t be a complete shocker if he were to lose from Amethi in 2019 Lok Sabha polls (in absence of any pre poll alliance). As many journalists like Ruhi Tewari & Sagarika Ghosh have noted that he needs to take accountability & work 24 x 7 instead of being a part time politician or otherwise step aside for the good of the party.  Right now Modi & Shah are not only popular but simply outworking Rahul Gandhi by the sheer amount of work they put in every single day to plan for the future. As seen in UP even a master strategist like Prashant Kishore in UP can’t save Congress from a debacle if the electorate is not buying what the Congress party is offering right now. When reporters who travelled UP extensively asked about Congress for most of the voters the question seemed more like a joke as they didn’t care at all about the Congress party. Question for Congressmen is that if he doesn’t step aside will they rebel to force change or are they simply not doing it right now out of respect for Sonia Gandhi. However if they wait too long for either Rahul Gandhi to change or force a change at the top, the damage to the party might be unmitigable. Congress does have a role to play in national politics as the primary opposition to BJP to keep the government’s power in check & keep them honest. If it doesn’t mend its ways soon, Congress tally in 2019 will be even lower when it could theoretically cede the title of main opposition party to some other regional party who has more seats.

Modi & Amit Shah has transformed the BJP into an unstoppable snowball rolling down the hill for 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Even opposition leaders like Omar Abdullah have openly commented that if the current situation persists then opposition should forget about 2019 Lok Sabha elections & instead start planning for 2024 elections. One thing opposition has been guilty of many times is personally attacking Modi which does no good to their own fortunes. Cheesy one liners similar to those seen in 80’s Bollywood movies like “maut ke saudagar” doesn’t work anymore. Modi is able to masterfully spin these personal attacks to his benefit sometimes even playing the “victim card”. Opposition needs to come up with a better & a coherent strategy to combat Modi on issues that affect the common man (like seen with the Land Acquisition Act). They have look beyond the usual wooing of certain sections of society as their vote banks as it invariably helps the Modi - Shah axis to masterfully create reverse polarization. Modi’s popularity especially among the youth as reported from the ground in UP is very high. Hence they have to rethink their old time tested strategies which might have work with older voters in the past but which is becoming more irrelevant with each passing day as more & younger voters joins the electoral rolls. Shekhar Gupta has eloquently said that the new young voter doesn’t vote like his fathers & grandfathers based on caste or past history of party but rather on basis of “what have you done for me lately”.

Modi has created this new broad arching sense of nationalism packaged with welfare schemes for poor independent of caste & creed. Modi for his part once he achieves close to majority in Rajya Sabha in mid-2018 he should be able to pass legislation much easily & move his development agenda forward without much resistance. Failure to provide growth will lead to resentment among the people & we have seen in the past that the “aspirational” voter can get restless very easily & throw you out of power if his/her situation is still the same after 5 years. Also the thorny question of how to have inclusive growth that uplifts along with others the Muslims also remains to be seen. BJP might not have given tickets to Muslims in UP due to what they say was the “winnability” factor. But at same time they can’t afford to be seen what other parties did in the past i.e. working for betterment of only some & not all. They will have figure out how to work for all 100% of the population without leaving behind the 20% Muslim population in UP.

Currently with the opposition appearing disjointed & dispirited, Modi looks to continue his electoral success in 2019. Biggest impediment to a repeat BJP win is taking things for granted/ overconfidence which has been the downfall of many popular governments in the past. BJP has to simply look back at last time it was in power for 5 years at Centre & how its “India Shining” campaign flopped miserably. Modi who has transformed his image successfully to project himself as the “messiah” of the poor right now has no equal in Indian politics & has been called the tallest leader in Indian politics by many. Some have even compared his popularity to the massive popularity that Indira Gandhi once enjoyed. This blast from the past should however accompany with a statutory health warning. Indira Gandhi who at the zenith of her popularity in 1971 coined the “Garibi Hatao” slogan (similar to the pro poor agenda by Modi today) came crashing down 6 years later post Emergency due to hubris & abuse of power.

UP Election 2017

Before I delve deep into the politics of Uttar Pradesh (UP) let me give everyone a perspective on the gargantuan size of state of Uttar Pradesh.
India’s most populous state: UP is home to 200+ million people (roughly equal to population of Brazil). If UP were a country by itself, in terms of population it would be the 5^th largest in the world & it would be the 4^th largest democracy in the world (after India, USA & Indonesia).

I shall break down this article on the basis of the title of the yesteryear Kapoor hit film KAL (History of UP Politics), AAJ (2017 Elections) AUR KAL (Future)

KAL (History of UP Politics)

UP politics like most of India till the late 1980’s was primarily dominated by single party (Congress) which is no different from rest of India during that period of time. In the late 80’s & early 90’s two major factors shaped UP politics: MANDAL & MANDIR.

Mandal symbolized political changes in early ‘90s in the wake of implementation of Mandal commission recommendations providing reservation to OBC’s (Other Backward Classes). MANDAL commission’s granting of reservation to OBC’s led to the rise of the Yadav’s in UP politics. Mulayam rode this wave to become CM in 1989. After the breakup of the erstwhile Janta Dal in the early 90’s he setup his own outfit: Samajwadi Party (SP). He was one of the architects of the M –Y (Muslim – Yadav) combo which help him win seats consistently over the years. He did share power with BSP after 1993 & once again in 2003 after rebel BSP MLA’s defected to SP. In the last election in 2012 his son & current CM Akhilesh Yadav orchestrated a landslide win for SP.

BJP rose to national & local prominence in the late 80’s /early 90’s with the Ram Mandir movement with the stated goal to build a temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya. In 1991 it achieved a majority by itself in UP though the government was later dismissed by central government after the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992. Subsequently it did return to power in 1998 but short of majority & with support from BSP.

Around the same time Kanshi Ram’s Bahujan Samaj was picking up momentum by positioning his party as the sole championer for Dalit causes & equality. He was providing an outlet for the Dalits who he believed were marginalized by the mainstream parties run by upper castes. BSP did have power sharing agreement with SP in 1993 & with BJP in both 1998 & 2002.  In 2007 riding on a coalition of Dalits + non-traditional BSP voters like Brahmins & Muslims she won a landslide ending years of coalition governments in UP. 

Uttar Pradesh in its last 2 elections has delivered decisive majorities to the victorious parties. In a 4 way contest between SP, BSP, BJP & Cong a 30% share of vote has translated into a landslide mandate for BSP in 2007 & SP in 2012.

This time around with the Congress joining hands with the Samajwadi Party it becomes a 3 way contest & the vote share required for a majority would now be around 34% (vs 26% in a 4 way contest) Uttar Pradesh has one of the most caste centric electorate in India. They are broken down as follows:

Upper Caste 20%

OBC’s 40% (10% Yadav’s)

Muslim 20%

Dalit 20%

The 3 main parties of Uttar Pradesh have their own bases pretty much aligned to them & the issue is how to attract the so called “floating” voters.

SP relies on the Muslim + Yadav vote bank being solidly behind them getting the required 30% which as I explained earlier is good enough in a 4 way contest but not enough in a 3 way contest. They have to get some of the Other OBC’s i.e. non-Yadav OBC’s to put them over the mark.

BSP relies on the unwavering loyalty of the 20% Dalit vote. It did pick up a lot of the Upper Caste & Muslim vote in 2007 when it came to power in a landslide. They do have to pick up a significant number from other caste groups such as Muslim’s & Upper Caste’s to be in reckoning.

BJP has always been recognized as an Upper Caste party. Apart from the 20% Upper Caste vote it has struggled in recent times to get over the finishing line due to lack of strong support from any of the other caste groups. An outlier to this was the 2014 Lok Sabha election where the Modi wave swept away everyone else with a 42% vote share. He was able to convince both OBC’s & Dalit’s to switch from their normal allegiance to SP & BSP which resulted in them getting absolutely crushed at the polls.

AAJ (2017 Election)

After the big win for SP in 2012 Mulayam surprisingly relinquished the CM’s chair & installed Akhilesh as CM (much to the chagrin of his brother Shivpal). His eyes were on a far bigger prize in New Delhi. Thinking that he can replicate this success in 2014 he can sweep UP in Lok Sabha polls & in a hung Lok Sabha become PM of a 3rd front government with outside support from anti BJP parties like Congress. But for SP the massive drubbing at the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 gave a huge jolt to SP & especially Akhilesh. This along with the constant stream of public statements from his father Mulayam about the bad governance in UP forced him to take action as he knew otherwise he would out of power in 2017. He quickly realized that to hold on to the CM’s chair the usual strongman politics practiced by Samajwadi party especially his father & his uncles. He learned the hard way from 2014 that the modern voter has become more aspirational which was successfully tapped into by Modi in 2014.  He knew he had to expand his base beyond the traditional Muslim – Yadav base. He started a two prong campaign: On one hand he started to focus more on developmental projects designed to fulfil the voter’s needs. He began to push forward infrastructure projects like highways connecting various districts of UP & also populist measures like distributing laptops to youths, bicycles to the poor, setting up a Samajwadi Mahila Pension Yojna which has been a hit with the poor women, etc. He has thus tried to nurture a loyal cross-caste base of voters who were not traditional SP voters in previous elections. Secondly to work on his personal image similar to what Modi did before 2014 campaign he setup a team with associates of Steve Jarding, a public policy professor at the Harvard Kennedy School to start a communication program to build up his image all corners of the state. He took out full page advertisements in newspapers & had TV & radio spots extolling the work his government had done. Interestingly in this entire media blitz the party patriarch Mulayam was noticeably absent which was surprising to watchers of UP politics, but this was deliberate strategy of slowly building up his image while escaping from his father’s shadow. This has very importantly help him remain popular with the masses even though the moniker of “goonda raj” , problem of lawlessness, land grabbing , etc. does stick to the other members of his party.  He simultaneously started to assert himself more like reversing his uncle Shivpal’s decision of inducting gangster turned politician Mukhtar Ansari last September. This was the start of the months long family feud with his father Mulayam & uncle Akhilesh which finally ended in early January. However the time lost during all the internal squabbles led to precious time being wasted which could have been used for campaigning. To overcome the vote% hurdles that I described earlier & the time lost he aligned himself with Congress in a pre-poll alliance. This was to make sure that the small vote share of Congress added to his kitty can put him over the top. In seats with high % of Muslim population his goal was make send a message to the Muslim voters to get all lined up behind his alliance vs getting their votes fragmenting among SP, BSP & Cong inherently helping the BJP. Even though local SP MLA’s are deeply unpopular in most parts of the state

Mayawati after the debacle of 2014 which saw her getting wiped out from the Lok Sabha had disbanded all her local party bodies and started planning meticulously for the 2017 elections. Due to the infighting within the SP she had a heads up in terms of planning for 2017. She is counting on the non – Jatav Dalits (Mayawati’s cate is Jatav) who were wooed away by Modi in 2014 will return to her fold due to anti Dalit incidents like Una flogging, Rohit Vermula suicide, etc. In order to widen her support bases she has fielded around 100 Muslim candidates to sway the Muslim vote in her favor. Even though she had multiple corruption cases against her people cutting across all classes agree that the law & order situation was much better under her than under SP rule. She has promised to ensure communal riots like in Muzzafanagar riots in 2013 never occur again. This is due to the widely accepted fact that the Akhilesh government which calls itself as the champions of Muslims was widely blamed for inaction during the riots in 2013. Since she has allied with the BJP in the past in coalition governments she has promised this time around to not tie up with them under any circumstance to allay fear of Muslim voters

BJP in UP as mostly in UP has been traditionally identified by voters as a forward/upper caste party. The numbers simply don’t add up for them to succeed on the basis of votes from just one group. BJP in 2014 rode a Modi tsunami to sweep Bihar winning 73/80 Lok Sabha seats. What it was able to do is successfully poach “floating” Non-Yadav OBC voters from SP & Non-Jatav Dalits from BSP. If you remember from my earlier blog in 2014 on the campaign trial, UP was where Modi (now famous or infamous depending on your POV ) pulled out the OBC card by telling voters that he was attacked by opposition because he is from “neech jaati” i.e. OBC. However repeating this won’t be as easy as in 2014. As I mentioned earlier some of the non-Jatav Dalits due to disenchantment with the BJP due to various incidents would migrate back to BSP. That leaves the last block non- Yadav OBC’s which I think holds the key to BJP coming to power in Lucknow. BJP in it’s heyday in UP in 1991 when they won election singlehandedly its CM was Kaylan Singh, an OBC from Lodh community. Realizing the importance of these non-Yadav OBC’s BJP’s chief strategist elevated Keshav Prasad Maurya an OBC import from BSP to the post of BJP president to woo the OBC’s.  Similar to 2014 a lot of tickets have distributed to OBC’s candidates. In addition they have aligned with two very small OBC & MBC (Most Backward Class) parties Apna Dal (AD) & Soheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) which have a strong following among their respective caste groups. Many non-Yadav OBC’s have complained that development might have occurred but the lion’s share of benefits have to gone Yadav fold & areas. For e.g. people in Purvanchal complain that all new infrastructure development like new roads is in Etawah, Safai, etc. & in metros where they see no benefit or the complaint that all the freebies promised by Akhilesh are lapped up mostly by Yadav’s leading them to scrounge for the leftovers. They see this as a new form of discrimination where now Yadav’s hold a disproportionate level of power while the other OBC’s are being left behind. This is the disenchantment that Amit Shah is looking to tap into to form the so called “rainbow coalition” of various castes to succeed this time around. He has worked with RSS for last couple of years including holding multiple mela’s/fairs for wooing these OBC’s to BJP fold. RSS has quietly worked in the background to ensure BJP win but also firmly avoiding the limelight unlike Bihar election just in case any inflammatory statements come back to hurt BJP’s electoral chances. Although BJP is working against some headwinds of no local leader/CM candidate & dissatisfaction among workers with ticket distribution & anger among Jat’s in western UP regarding reservation & demonetization.  It was interesting that in the first few phases Modi talked about development & SP/BSP failures but in middle of the campaign the “shamshan/kabristan” comments were uttered ensure complete reverse polarization where they can consolidate the entire Hindu vote towards the BJP.

 Aur KAL (Future)

Many see this election as a direct presidential type election between two hugely popular Modi & Akhilesh. Akhilesh if he succeeds in pulling off a repeat win he will be the undisputed king of UP, earning him the moniker of Modi slayer (which few can lay claim to) & most likely consigning his dad & uncle into the dreaded “margdarshak” (euphemism for forced retirement) wing of the party. For Akhilesh this election is not a matter of simply keeping BJP away from power but also his own warring kin at an arm’s length. If he loses the knives will surely be out & will be blamed by his many detractors in SP for the loss. In that case one can expect even more family drama in the upcoming months. One impression many observers get is that due to his clean image plus his relative youth (43 years is toddler age in Indian politics) means he will around to recapture power in the future if not successful this time around.  Due to his cross caste popularity due to his populist schemes he should be able to compensate the Muslim votes he loses to the BSP & other voters who were turned off by their alliance with the Congress Few open questions is the extent of damage done by infighting within SP & moves by Shivpal & his supporters to sabotage SP candidates & more importantly what was the impact of starting the campaigning so late as he was stuck in Lucknow first in party feud & then in seat sharing negotiations with Congress, precious time which could have spent on the road campaigning especially in a large state like UP. All these positive & negative points taken together might prevent a landslide majority for him while also preventing a total collapse for alliance in case they lose. Even if they are ahead the “friendly fire” with Congress where both put up candidates in around 15 seats inspite of being in an alliance will come back to haunt them if they lose those seats & just fall short of majority.

Mayawati on other is fighting hard to stay relevant in UP. She has been nurturing Muslims with the hope that Muslims moving en masse to her side will lead her to victory. If that doesn’t occur she is doomed as she has very few crossover voters from other caste groups. She very well knows if she loses this time then 15 years in the wilderness (even with the most ardent support base of any political party) she risks being irrelevant in future elections. Her draconian control of the party will ensure no splits but there could more desertions from the party especially among the non-Dalit leaders (like Keshav Prasad Maurya who defected to BJP last year) who will look for greener pastures among other parties.

 Inspite of all the negative press surrounding demonetization & its associated hardships faced by many, Modi remains incredibly popular. With several steps such as demonetization, surgical strikes he is often labelled as a “decisive leader”. Demonetization did cause pain to the poor voters as they mentioned but the all agree on why the step needed to be taken which was to reduce the black money with the corrupt rich people/businessmen/politicians. With this one Robin Hood type master stroke plus other schemes for the poor in last couple of years Modi has overnight transformed BJP’s image from a middle class/traders/businessmen party to a pro poor party which was meant to win over the poorest of the poor : OBC’s/Dalits which form a bulk of the electorate in UP . A word of caution that his popularity however doesn’t automatically guarantee success at the ballot box in a local election especially when up against a popular incumbent CM , a lesson learnt painfully by BJP against Nitish Kumar in Bihar in 2015. This popularity of his should however hold in good stead in 2019 Lok Sabha elections where national issues carry greater weightage.

Last but not least the smallest of these players is Congress. A tie up with SP probably saved it from oblivion. Many were shocked at the numbers of seats (100+) given to them by SP considering them to be a non-existent force outside their strongholds of Amethi & Rae Bareilly in UP. A win with SP in UP will lead to much jubilation but they need to be mindful of their descent into total irrelevance. For a big national party like Congress alarm bells should be setting off at 24 Akbar Road that it had to ride on the coattails of strong regional parties like RJD/JD(U) in Bihar & SP in UP to remain relevant in big states. More noticeable was the absence of multiple heavyweights campaigning in UP. On the campaign trials multiple correspondents reported that youth totally dismissed Rahul Gandhi as immature & Congress party as not even in the discussion of whom to vote for. A loss for Congress in 2019 if went alone in Amethi or Rae Bareilly which once would have be considered unfathomable is no longer an unlikely scenario due to the current depilated state of party.

This has been one of the most difficult elections to figure out. Due to the lack of any overarching issue like lawlessness in 2007 which brought Mayawati to power or corruption in 2012 which brought Akhilesh to power or the Modi wave for change & development in 2014 there is no wave/”hawa” this time around . This combined with sheer size of the state which leads to various variances in different parts of the states makes it one of the most difficult elections to predict.

Also consider a reversal of usual roles in UP this time around: Mulayam was known to be master strategist who knew that Muslim –Yadav consolidation is not simply enough & used to have these micro alliances with local outfits in various parts of state to ensure smaller caste groups vote for SP.  However his son Akhilesh is instead relying on a macro alliance with Congress & appealing to cross caste voters voting for his development & populist measures. This time in a role reversal this stitching together of these mini alliances is being done by Amit Shah to consolidate the OBC vote towards BJP.

 Modi & Akhilesh are very popular in their own right. How their popularity translates to actual votes & determines the outcome of this election is to be seen. Akhilesh is working against anti-incumbency where many of the local MLA’s are deeply unpopular & SP - Cong alliance is banking of the voters forgetting about their MLA & simply voting for Akhilesh. Ditto for BJP where they are banking on reverse polarization of Hindus, smaller alliance caste arithmetic & the Modi charm offensive to beat the opposition. As I mentioned earlier non-Yadav OBC’s hold the key to the election on if they can be swayed to BJP or they go for SP. Modi has practically staked his reputation on this election with an unheard 3 days of straight campaigning with majority of the cabinet in Varanasi. This opens a possibility that if he loses not only it dents his image severely in this so called “semi-final” before his reelection in 2019 but also will give his detractors ample ammunition (like they had post Bihar election loss in 2015) for openly criticizing the Modi – Shah axis of power. This aggressive campaigning might indicate a feeling of unease within BJP of getting about either getting over the hump or being actually behind before the last few phases. With the displeasure of Jats in Western UP they might have done weaker in Phase 1 which means they might compensate elsewhere to make the numbers. 
BJP will require all that he has got in this last phase of campaigning to put them over the line with a small majority to end their 14 year “vanvas” in UP (which ironically won't be lost on a few people as it is the exact number of years that Ram spent in vanvas in Ramayan) or in worst case be the single largest party in event of a hung assembly.