UP's three-tier panchayat elections a semi-final for Yogi Adityanath

The influx of nearly 3.2 million migrant workers following Covid-19 lockdown notwithstanding, Uttar Pradesh is gearing up for the three-tier panchayat elections towards the end of this year.

Held to be the world’s largest local-body polls, more than 120 million people are eligible to elect the members of nearly 59,000 panchayats.

The term of the current elected bodies at the village-, block-, and district-levels will expire on December 26.

Although these elections are not contested on party symbols, candidates openly owe allegiance to their outfits. The parties too get into the act by supporting their nominees and, in the process, consolidating their vote banks in rural and semi-urban areas.

Not without reason, the UP panchayat polls are seen as the virtual semifinal for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath before the big electoral battle in early 2022. The issue of the migrant workers is expected to play out extensively during the canvassing phase.

Earlier, speculation was rife that the panchayat elections could be delayed due to the lockdown, since it takes up to six months for the State Election Commission (SEC) to prepare the groundwork for these polls, including updating the electoral rolls and the delimitation of constituencies.

Interestingly, the electoral rolls for these elections are different from the ones prepared by the Election Commission of India (ECI) for assembly and parliamentary polls.

“We are preparing for conducting the state panchayat elections on time, sometime in November and December,” UP Additional Election Commissioner Ved Prakash Verma told Business Standard.

In the elections of 2015, there were nearly 117 million eligible voters, while the number is expected to rise by about 10 per cent, he said.

As political activity is inching up under Unlock 1.0, the BJP is confident of gaining the upper hand in these elections, largely on the goodwill of Adityanath and the steps taken to evacuate the migrant workers from other states, map skills, and create jobs.

However, the opposition is also looking to corner the ruling party by harping on the purported miseries of the migrants, their abrupt loss of livelihood, and the routine hardships facing them owing to lockdown and the Covid-19 health scare.

Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and former UP cabinet minister Rajendra Chaudhary said the party was mobilising cadres and a strategy for the panchayat polls was expected to be drawn up by next month.

“The issue of the migrant workers will be in sharp focus in these polls, and the ruling party will lose,” he said, adding SP President Akhilesh Yadav had started energising booth-level workers.

Yashvir Tyagi, former head of the economics department at Lucknow University, observed: “The migrants’ issue has the potential to influence the outcome of the panchayat polls. But the extent of the impact would depend on a host of factors, the foremost being the ability of the government to provide relief and rehabilitation to them. Although the state is chalking out
programmes, the speed and efficiency of implementation would hold the key to gaining the support of the migrants.”

The second important factor was the revival of the sagging economy, he said.

“If economic activities gather pace, then some migrants may return to their workplaces in other states, while some may find work in urban centres of UP itself. The remaining ones, especially women, will have to be provided work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and other rural programmes.”

However, the BJP appears to be unfazed by all this, and is readying to galvanise the grassroots workers and cadre.

“The party has declared the names of those to be in charge of districts. We believe in fighting any election with the same zeal and preparedness as Lok Sabha polls,” UP BJP Spokesperson Manish Shukla said.

UP was the first state to begin the process of bringing back stranded workers from other states, he said, adding it was calibrating the schemes and projects against skills to generate employment.

“The one district-one product (ODOP) scheme will play a major role in creating jobs, while the expressways and industrial projects being set up as part of the UP Investors’ Summit will sustain the growth momentum.”