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.