The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appears to be all set to retain power in Uttar Pradesh, and even though official victory figures are not out yet, as per data available at 3 P.M, the party was leading in 243 seats and had secured 2 victories. Its closest competitor, the Samajwadi Party (SP) was leading in 121 seats. BUt the real story lies in the vote share. For the purposes of this piece, we are using data published at 3 P.M by the Election Commission of India’s official website.
Then (2017) and now (2022)
If we take a look at the vote share at this point, the BJP has the largest at 42.01 percent, followed by the SP with 31.77 percent. It is also noteworthy that Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) still has over 12 percent of the vote share in the state, despite leads in only 1 seat! This shows that the party still has loyal voters, but they are scattered across different constituencies.
Now, let us take a quick look at what the vote share looked like in 2017, when Adityanath first came to power. Back then, the BJP had contested 384 seats and won 312. This time there appears to be a marked drop in the number of seats based on information on leads available so far. The SP that was decimated in 2017 and reduced to a measly 47, has certainly improved its tally significantly. The BSP had won 19 seats in 2017, so the drop so far is not that large. Also, irrespective of how much political pundits might want to write her off, Mayawati will not go gently into the night.
Is the INC still politically relevant?
It is noteworthy though that the Indian National Congress (INC) has become almost irrelevant in UP politics. In 2017, the INC contested 114 seats and won 7, and its vote share stood at 6.25 percent. This time, as per data available at 3 P.M, their vote share has dropped to just over 2 percent! This is odd considering the party addressed over 200 rallies and public meetings.
Some blame it on their absence during the period other than election season. In fact, this is exactly what helped the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab. They were interacting with the electorate and gauging its pulse for at least two years before the actual elections. This allowed them to not only build rapport, but also showcase themselves as a party that was actually interested in improving the lives of people, and not just aiming to get votes.
In fact, the INC let go of so many opportunities to engage in rights advocacy in UP during the multitude of tragedies that hit the state – from the mismanagement during Covid, to growing instances of communalism, caste-based killings and even seething rage among farmers due to the agricultural laws. The electorate can see through sporadic token protests and press conferences. The party’s negligible vote share is therefore an indicator of how the people chose to punish it. It has been wiped out in traditional bastions like Amethi and Rae Bareli, and summarily trounced to single digits almost everywhere!
Vote share and victory: Flaws in strategy
Electoral victory is a product of complex factors, and not just vote share. Even though political pundits refer to votes based on castes and communities, it is important to never treat a community’s votes as a monolith, different people have different aspirations and priorities.
However, even if one were to presume that people from a particular community or caste will vote overwhelmingly for one party, it is possible that their votes in their respective constituencies will still be a smaller percentage of the total number of votes cast in that constituency. This is why gerrymandering, or drawing of constituency boundaries to always ensure one voter group always has a majority, is such a touchy subject.
Another element that should not be ignored is how vote consolidation helps certain parties triumph over their opponents, as the votes of those opposed to the party’s policies or ideologies simply get divided among the various other parties who are opposed to said party.
Intelligent pre-poll alliances can help like-minded parties hold on to their vote banks and not confuse or divide voters. But that is not what happened in UP.
Surprise leads and shocking losses
There were also some surprises where the BJP was leading in constituencies where it wasn’t expected to perform this well. For example, it cornered over 49 percent of the vote share to lead in Kasganj, and over 58 percent of the vote share in Hathras. Both these places had been in the news – Kasganj for not only communal conflict, but also the mysterious custodial death of a Muslim man, and Hathras for the rape and death of a young Dalit woman.
Another shocker was how BJP’s Pankaj Gupta cornered over 52 percent of the vote in Unnao, a constituency associated the most with BJP’s shame given how Kuldeep Singh Sengar, was a BJP MLA from this region before he was convicted for the rape of a teenage girl in 2018. In fact, Asha Singh, the mother of the rape survivor had contested elections from Unnao on an INC ticket this time, but she managed to get just over 800 votes!
BJP was also leading in Robertsganj, home to a thriving community of Adivasis who have been using legal means to struggle peacefully for their rights to forest land and produce, and who have faced institutional violence due to the same. BJP’s Bhupesh Chaubey had cornered over 41 percent of the vote here, with SP’s Awinash Kushwaha trailing close behind with just over 35 percent. In Duddhi, another constituency with a substantial Adivasi population, BJP’s Ramdular again cornered over 41 percent of the vote share, though SP’s Vijay Singh wasn’t trailing far behind with 38 percent of the vote share.
Hapur, that had been associated with mob lynchings also saw BJP’s Vijaypal leading with over 46 percent of the vote share. In Muzaffarnagar, an area that was the cite of communal violence in 2013, though the Rashtriya Lok Dal’s (RLD) Saurabh was in the lead with 49 percent of the vote share, at the time of going to press, BJP’s Kapil Dev Agarwal was biting close at his heels with 43.94 percent.
Meanwhile BJP’s Brijesh leads in Deoband, the seat of the Darul Uloom, with 38.77 percent, with SP’s Kartikeya Rana close at his heels with 35.83 percent. It is important to note that Deoband’s Nagar Palika (municipality) is dominated by Muslims, and sub-district by Hindus. The story is more complex though, and it appears the failure of the SP and BSP to come to a mutual agreement has cost them both this important seat. BSP’s Chaudhary Rajendra Singh has cornered 21.77 percent of the vote. A pre-poll SP-BSP alliance, like the one forged in the run up to the 2019 general elections, could have helped consolidate the vote for them.
Brijesh is clearly having the last laugh. In 2017, he had told Economic Times, “Deoband has been a land of Hindus much before Darul Uloom came into being. During the era of Mahabharata, it was called Dev Vrand, the land where the five Pandavs worshipped. After Darul Uloom was set up, the name was changed to Deoband.” The BJP’s electoral mathematic in this mammoth north Indian state has had a significant impact on the Muslim community, leading to their invisibilisation, a marked absence in representation.
Similar trends were visible at the end of the tenth round of counting in UP’s Shahganj district as well.
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