Third phase of UP polls today: Why it's crucial for Akhilesh and for BJP

It could decide whether UP gets a hung assembly, a BJP govt or an SP-Cong govt

Sixty-nine seats in central Uttar Pradesh go to polls on Sunday in the third phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election. The third phase covers some of Samajwadi Party's pocket boroughs like Etawah, Kannauj, Auraiya and Mainpuri districts. In 2012, SP won 55 of these 69 seats, which contributed in creating a wave in the rest of the phases for Akhilesh Yadav-led party to cross majority mark.

But today, the SP faces a bitter family feud in several of these seats. While Akhilesh himself doesn't face any anti-incumbency, many of his party's sitting legislators are not particularly popular among their constituents. The family is also working at cross purposes, with supporters of Akhilesh's estranged uncle Shivpal Yadav campaigning to ensure the defeat of official SP candidates, and appealing for support to Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidates.

These are factors that SP-Congress alliance's two principal rivals – the BSP and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – hope to take advantage of. A poor showing by the SP-Congress alliance in this phase could help BJP and BSP get back in the game for the remainder four phases.

The assessment among BJP workers is that the party performed below par in the first two phases after the Jats in western Uttar Pradesh decided to teach it a lesson. 

The BSP believes it needed to do better in the previous two phases. Only the SP-Congress alliance is satisfied at the feedback from the ground.

In phase one on February 11, polling was held on 73 seats, while 67 seats went to the polls in phase two on February 15. In all, voting is complete on 140 seats. 

Although, UP elections is spread over seven phases, the third phase marks the mid-point of the current elections, with 209 of the 403 seats will have voted by today evening.

The BJP is now a tad nervous. The infighting among BJP ranks in eastern Uttar Pradesh, particularly the dissent after the party tickets were distributed to 'outsiders' and relatives of leaders, and the absence of anti-Muslim consolidation among Hindus, are factors that have made the party leadership edgy.

BJP Chief Amit Shah's efforts at knitting a patchwork of non-Yadav OBC and non-Jatav Dalit castes is also seemingly lurching towards a fate that his social engineering suffered in the Bihar assembly polls of October-November 2015. In UP, the non-Yadav OBC castes are too numerous and share mutual distrust to be able to vote in a consolidated manner for any one party. There are also region specific trust deficits between particular non-Yadav OBC castes.

Moreover, demonetisation has hurt these castes the most as these comprise farmers, small shopkeepers, daily wagers and labourers. Urban areas like Kanpur and Lucknow, industrial and trading centres of Uttar Pradesh, which bore the brunt of demonetisation, vote in this phase. Neither Prime Minister Narendra Modi nor the BJP chief talk anymore of demonetisation.

If it fails to do well in the third phase, the BJP's best case scenario, say political observers, is to hope for a hung assembly and win enough seats to have a near majority in the electoral college for the Presidential elections in July this year.

But this scenario could change if the family feud in SP helps BJP performs well in the third phase. According to the Akhilesh camp, those close to Shivpal Yadav have been campaigning against SP's official candidates. Although, the word from the ground is that the warning issued to them by Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday at a public rally in Etawah has hit home and their activities were subdued in the last 48-hours before the polling.

As for the unpopularity of his party's legislators, in recent public rallies, Akhilesh has appealed to people to not punish him for the follies of his legislators and that he would fix things if given another opportunity to run the state.

A shot in the arm for the SP-Congress alliance is a public statement by Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh that his party will not support the BJP in a post-poll scenario if that party is falling short of the majority mark. This leaves the RLD with only the option of supporting an SP-Congress alliance government.

In the midst of all this, BSP chief Mayawati is going about her campaigning ceaselessly, drawing substantial crowds in her meetings. But in the absence of any significant anti-incumbency against the Akhilesh Yadav government and no sign that Muslims have completely deserted the SP-Congress alliance, the BSP's prospects of a good showing in this phase do not look bright.