Opinion How UP changed its mind

This is one of the biggest victories by any party or alliance in the history of assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh since 1977,when the Janata Party,riding an anti-Indira wave,won 352 assembly seats. The impressive victory of the SP became possible because the anti-Mayawati votes got polarised in its favour,in the absence of the Congress or the BJP being seen as a viable alternative. Though technically,UP witnessed a multi-cornered contest,it turned into a contest between the first two parties,the SP and the BSP. The BJP and the Congress-RLD alliance competed amongst themselves for the third and the fourth place,but were nowhere close to being in the real contest.

The SP’s impressive victory was made possible because it not only managed to retain its core support base among Muslims and Yadavs,it managed to make a heavy dent into the vote bank of other parties,mainly the BSP. It is not surprising that Muslim voters,who are sizeable in numbers (18 per cent of total population) voted for the SP in large numbers,it managed to win back the Muslim support lost during the last Lok Sabha election. The Congress,which got sizeable support among the Muslims during the 2009 Lok Sabha election,failed to hold on to it. The Yadavs remained polarised in favour of SP,though there was a marginal decline in their support. What really worked in their favour was a significant shift amongst the non-Yadav OBC voters,Kurmi and the Koeri and other OBCs who had voted for the BSP in large numbers in the 2007 assembly election. Despite Amar Singh’s absence,a large number of Rajputs voters still opted for Mulayam Singh. In fact,more Rajput voters voted for Mulayam Singh in 2012 compared to the 2007 assembly elections. This was mainly at the BJP’s expense. It is not clear if Rajnath Singh has lost his charm amongst the Rajput voters or if Rajputs did not side with BJP because they did not want to vote for the losing party. The SP attracted a large number of Brahmin voters at the cost of both Congress and the BJP. The SP managed to make a dent even amongst the Jatavs and non-Jatav Dalit voters,which had been the core support base for the BSP. Though BSP still managed to get majority of the Jatav and non-Jatav Dalit votes,this election witnessed the rare instance of Dalits moving away from the BSP.

The BSP suffered a big defeat mainly because it could not hold on to its core base amongst Jatavs,non-Jatav Dalits and poor voters. The loss for the BSP was much bigger amongst Dalits and the poor compared to its losses amongst voters of other caste communities. It is possible that the expectations that Dalits had from the Mayawati-led BSP government could not be fulfilled in the last five years. It also suffered losses amongst the lower OBCs but managed to retain a similar support base as in 2007 among Brahmins,Rajputs,other upper castes and Muslims. Had the BSP managed to retains its core support base,the party may not have suffered badly.

The BJP’s poor performance is mainly because,on one hand the party could not bring new voters to its fold,on the other hand it could not hold on to its popularity amongst its traditional supporters,namely Brahimns,Rajputs,Vaishya ,other upper castes and urban educated voters. The BJP lost its popularity even amongst these sections in varying proportion.

The tragedy with Congress is that though it managed to increase its support base marginally amongst the educated urban young voters,and also amongst the poor voters to some extent,compared to 2007 assembly elections,these gains did not help the party in putting up a good electoral show. It barely attracted voters from any other sections. Had the party managed to retain its support base amongst the Muslims,which it got during the 2009 Lok Sabha election,it would have certainly done better. Rahul Gandhi did campaign hard,and got sympathy from a large number of voters,but when it came to voting,only a small number of young urban educated voters chose the Congress.

The writer is a fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) and a political analyst