2024 Lok Sabha polls: How INDIA Bloc’s social engineering changed the game in UP

SP president Akhilesh Yadav adopted the BJP’s magical social engineering formThe Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha election results have undoubtedly proved to be a major roadblock in the BJP-led NDA smoothly capturing power for the third consecutive term. Together, the INDIA alliance partners, Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress, won 43 of the total 80 seats, preventing the BJP from reaching the halfway mark, leave alone ‘400 paar’.

It was SP president Akhilesh Yadav’s ingenious and inclusive social engineering that achieved this feat, virtually stalling the Hindutva juggernaut in its tracks. Taking advantage of the gradual collapse of the once formidable Bahujan Samaj Party, he had been nurturing the Dalits in a systematic manner. Way back in 2018, he had unveiled a statue of B R Ambedkar at the SP office in Lucknow, adding him to the party’s icons like Ram Manohar Lohia, Jayaprakash Narayan and other socialist leaders. For the 2024 Lok Sabha election, he changed the perception of the SP as a M-Y (Muslim-Yadav) party by putting together a much broader formulation popularly called PDA, ‘Pichde’ (backward), Dalit and Alpsankhyak (minorities).

The SP-Congress unity was born out of a shared consciousness and feeling against exploitation and oppression of the PDA. At the heart of this social justice plank was the pledge to uphold the Samvidhan (Constitution) from which flows the affirmative guarantees for the PDA as well as fulfilling the promises listed in the Congress manifesto, addressing issues of day-to-day survival faced by the most marginalised — rampant unemployment, skyrocketing inflation, farmers distress, examination paper leaks, stray cattle menace, inequity, discrimination and violence on the basis of caste and religion and assurance of a caste census.

The victory in Faizabad (Ayodhya) 

He virtually adopted the BJP’s magical social engineering formula of winning over the non-Yadav OBCs. Akhilesh managed to walk the talk by giving 13 seats to the Kurmis, and many more to other backward castes like Kushwahas, Nishad, Bind, Mauryas and Pal. He as well as other INDIA bloc leaders smartly played upon BJP’s overconfident claim of ‘400 paar’. When several saffron brigade leaders elaborated that such a number was required to bring about long term transformation by changing the Constitution, the PDA slowly but surely shifted to the INDIA bloc in UP to save the Constitution. This is the section which had enthusiastically voted for the BJP in 2014 and 2019. This time neither the attraction of the newly constructed Ram Mandir in Ayodhya nor the inducements of free ration and other labharti benefits worked in BJP’s favour. It was the fear of the BJP tinkering with the Constitution that has made them shift to the INDIA bloc.

Interestingly, both non-Jatav and later even Jatav Dalits appear to have shifted towards the SP. To win them over, Akhilesh gave at least two tickets to Dalits in non-reserved constituencies. The most conspicuous example of the success of his strategy is the victory in Faizabad (Ayodhya) where Akhilesh had fielded a party veteran Awdhesh Prasad, a Pasi, in a general seat against BJP’s two-time MP and a Rajput leader Lallu Singh. In Ayodhya, the epicenter of Ram Mandir, Prasad won by a handsome margin of 54,567 votes.

A section of the Jatav votes also shifted towards the SP after Mayawati’s election maneuverings became clear. There was a definite design in the way Behenji distributed tickets meaning to undermine the INDIA bloc candidates’ prospects, the formulation standing for upholding the Constitution. Most scandalous was the manner in which she disgraced her own nephew and successor, Akash Anand, by stripping him of all responsibilities after he delivered a hard -hitting speech against the BJP in the early phase of the election. Akhilesh was quick to come out in defence of Akash on his social media account.

Delivering a blockbuster 

In a way, SP victory has also avenged the way Akhilesh was short-changed in 2019 when the SP-BSP alliance gave Mayawati 10 seats and SP merely five. Behenji had then unilaterally broken the alliance, charging SP of not succeeding in transferring its vote.

Aazad Samaj Party (Kashi Ram) President Chandrashekhar winning the Nagina (reserved) seat by a margin of 1.51 lakh votes against the BJP and the BSP coming fourth speaks volumes of the kind of hold the BSP now has in Western UP where there is a sizeable Jatav vote.

SP has won 37 seats on its own while the BSP is not even the runner-up anywhere. Its vote share has shrunk to an all-time low of 2.05 percent. It is a decisive end of the road for the party which once represented the Dalits and Bahujans.

PM Modi derisively described Congress party’s Rahul Gandhi and Samajwadi Party’s AkhileshYadav as the two Shehzades throughout the campaign. He had mocked their coming together for the repeat release of the flop film Do Shehzade. However, this time the INDIA bloc represented by Rahul and Akhilesh reworked BJP’s own caste formula to deliver a blockbuster.

(Shahira Naim is a senior journalist based in Lucknow)