UP polls: BJP in a tough spot

By welcoming non-Yadav OBC deserters from the BJP, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav is emulating the BJP's own strategy in General Elections of 2014 and 2019 & the Legislative Elections of 2017 in the state.

On the eve of the Uttar Pradesh polls, 9 BJP legislators including three ministers have quit, making their way to its main adversary, the Samajwadi Party (SP). The defectors have boasted that each day three to four legislators from the BJP will leave till January 20 – with the 21st being the last date to file nominations for the first phase of the elections.

This has been described by one of the deserters as a ‘political earthquake’ and by political observers as a ‘set-back’ and a ‘major jolt’ to the BJP. Most of those leaving represent the smaller, non-Yadav Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and with its communal rhetoric yeilding little response, the Uttar Pradesh polls do not appear to be a cake-walk for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

By welcoming non-Yadav OBC deserters from the BJP, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav is emulating the BJP’s own strategy in the General Elections of 2014 and 2019 and the legislative elections of 2017 in the state. The induction of Swami Prasad Maurya sends a very strong signal as he enjoys considerable mass support and among the non-Yadav OBCs. especially the Maurya-Kushwaha-Shakya-Saini communities. Eight other existing legislators have left the BJP with him, including Dara Singh Chauhan and Dharam Singh Saini, both like Maurya, ministers in the present government.

Admittedly, some defectors from the BJP had become unpopular in their constituencies and feared anti-incumbency or wanted the party to field their next of kin as well. However, each of them has indicted the BJP government for ‘suppressing’ the voice of Dalits and backward classes. Their collective desertion on the eve of polls, sends a negative signal about the BJP to the castes they represent.

This realisation has sent the BJP into overdrive -- it has reportedly pressed 20,000 OBC activists across the state to counter the allegations that it is a party controlled by the upper-castes. About 50 OBC party leaders have been tasked with a door-to-door campaign in the 403 constituencies in the state to highlight the work done by the BJP government in UP and at the Centre for the OBC communities. Publicity was to the fore in projecting Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s ‘sah-bhoj’ (shared meal) at the home of a Dalit party worker in Gorakhpur. Of the 107 BJP candidates announced for the first two phases of the elections, 44 are OBC and 17 Dalits. Other sitting legislators have apparently reassured that they will mostly be retained by the party.

Although Maurya reacted to a non-bailable arrest warrant issued against him in an old legal case by saying, “All this and much more will happen now”, that seems unlikely that the BJP will unleash government agencies against the defectors, as is their wont. The investigative agencies of the government can still act even though the Model Code of Conduct is now in force in the state. However, the discontented legislators have already bolted and threatening them no longer serves as a useful deterrent.

In all likelihood, the BJP will counter the anti-backward and anti-Dalit rhetoric of the deserters by organising counter-defections from the SP and the BSP. Those identified as potential candidates apparently include SP leaders from Ayodhya and the Kannauj-Farrukhabad belt and a former BSP minister.

Mining into the BSP’s Dalit base looks easy with BSP supremo Mayawati looking remarkably diffident in this election. She seems to barely be in the race to form the next government. With their morale lowered by their leader’s diffidence, even the Jatav vote, the bulwark of Mayawati’s support amongst Dalits, could split with some shifting their vote to the party that appears most likely to form the next government.

A party not seen to be winning, often sends sections of its supporters looking for other options. In the 2007 legislative elections, a significant section of the UP Brahmins moved to the BSP because the BJP’s prospects looked bleak. In 2012, the Thakurs of UP moved to the SP because they saw it most likely to win. These calculations proved right both times – BSP’s Mayawati became the Chief Minister in 2007and SP’s Akhilesh Yadav in 2012. In the 2017 general elections, the BJP got the same advantage as its prospects of victory attracted the Thakurs, Brahmins, non-Yadav OBCs and non-Jatav Dalits into its fold. Should the Dalits perceive Mayawati as having given up the fight in this election, it is possible their vote will split between the the BJP and the SP. If the BJP is able to attract the Jatavs, it could just balance the likely loss of non-Yadav OBCs. However, that is a chapter yet to unfold.

Only the intentions of the minority voters seem clear this time around. The Muslim voters will opt for only that party which they believe can defeat the BJP. One witnessed this in West Bengal where almost the entire Muslim vote went to Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress. With the en masse shift of the minority vote to the Trinamul the Congress party lost all Muslim-dominated constituencies it had counted among its pocket-boroughs. In UP as well, there might be no confusion in the mind of the Muslim voters this time around about where their preferences lie. The possibility of an unprecedented Muslim consolidation behind the SP is even stronger in UP this time because it is not in alliance with the Congress or the BSP.

However, whether the consolidation of Muslim vote in favour of the SP will translate into seats remains unclear. In the 2019 general election the minority consolidation behind the SP-BSP alliance did not bring a gain in seats because there was a much larger Hindu consolidation in favour of the BJP. This time no similar communal consolidation has built up so far in UP despite the best efforts of the BJP and the hate-mongering of its larger Hindutva brigade.

The desertion of the non-Yadav OBC leaders and Jat anger in Western UP against the BJP following its mishandling of the 15 month-long farmers’ agitation seem to be the two major roadblocks to communal polarisation.