Purvanchal: BJP's Achilles heel in UP’s remaining election phases

The penultimate phase of polling across 14 Lok Sabha constituencies of Uttar Pradesh, a majority of them in the Purvanchal region, is arguably the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Achilles’ heel in the current election.

Economically impoverished and deeply divided along caste lines, these constituencies are where the social justice and ‘save Constitution’ planks of INDIA alliance partners Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress will have a direct clash with the BJP’s twin narratives of Hindutva and ‘Viksit Bharat’.

In the 2019 polls, which Akhilesh Yadav’s SP and Mayawati’s BSP had fought in alliance, the BJP won eight of these 14 seats while its ally, the NISHAD party, won from Sant Kabir Nagar. Of the 15 seats that the SP and the BSP had collectively bagged in the state in 2019, five – Azamgarh (SP), Ambedkar Nagar, Shrawasti, Lalganj and Jaunpur (all BSP) – were from the lot of 14 seats that go to polls on May 25. Two more – Azamgarh (SP) and Ghosi (BSP) – are among constituencies that will go to polls in the final phase of voting on June 1.

No SP-BSP tie-up

As such, half of the seats that the SP-BSP alliance had won in 2019 in Uttar Pradesh despite the post Balakot euphoria for the BJP were from among the 27 constituencies where elections are due on May 25 (14 seats) and June 1 (13 seats).

In theory, the BJP can draw some solace from the non-existence of an alliance between the SP and the BSP in this election. The saffron party may hope that with two regional parties contesting the polls separately, the opposition’s vote would split and give candidates of the BJP and its allies an edge.

But then, in politics what seems a reasonable theory seldom makes for sound praxis; the BJP needn’t look any further than the results of the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.

Bipolar battle

The past few years have shown that elections have increasingly become bipolar between a dominant BJP and the next best party or formation that can defeat it. Nowhere was this more evident than in the 2022 polls, where a once dominant BSP was reduced to a single seat in the 403-member Assembly with its vote share falling to just over 12 percent; a 10 percent fall from the 2017 election.

The SP, which failed to dislodge the BJP from power, however, gained a 10 per cent vote share over the previous election and finished with 111 seats in the Assembly against the 47 it had won five years earlier.

For the BJP, the bigger message from the 2022 result, though, was that the SP was making definite strides in the Purvanchal constituencies where elections are now due. Of the 111 assembly seats that Akhilesh’s party had bagged in 2022, 35 seats fall under the 14 Lok Sabha constituencies that go to polls on May 25 while another 11 are spread across the 13 Lok Sabha constituencies scheduled for elections on June 1. In dozens of Assembly segments across Purvanchal, the SP had lost to the BJP with very slender margins.

Electoral complexities

Additionally, of the 14 Lok Sabha seats going to the polls in Phase 6, three – Lalganj, Ambedkar Nagar and Azamgarh – saw the BJP failing to win a single Assembly seat in 2022; losing them all to the SP despite the saffron party’s surprising sweep across the rest of the state.

The SP’s impressive wins across the 10 Assembly segments that collectively fall under Lalganj and Ambedkar Nagar were despite the fact that the two Lok Sabha seats were won by the BSP in 2019 and have been known to be strongholds of Mayawati’s party.

Those who understand Purvanchal’s electoral complexities insist that a similar voting trend could continue in the current elections too.

Dalit, OBC voices

“Traditionally, two major factors have always influenced the electoral results in most of the constituencies going to the polls in phase 6 and 7, particularly those that fall under Purvanchal. Firstly, because these are economically very backward constituencies, anti-incumbency builds very quickly here unless the sitting MP is either extremely efficient or extremely powerful.

“Secondly, this is a region that has concentrations of a number of Dalit and backward castes as well as the forward class Brahmins and Thakurs. So, caste-divide between the forward and backward castes and the tendency of Dalit and OBC voters to back parties which give them proper representation are both very visible here. In the current elections, both these factors seem to be working in the SP’s favour,” says Harsh Sinha, political commentator and professor at the DDU Gorakhpur University.

Modi, Yogi shadow

Sinha says the BJP’s over-reliance on Modi at the Centre and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in the state – incidentally both represent constituencies that fall under Purvanchal, Modi being the MP from Varanasi and the Yogi representing Gorakhpur in the Assembly – has made incumbent BJP MPs “persona non grata”.

This leaves them “very little scope to shine either in terms of performance or clout”. This, Sinha says, has led to high anti-incumbency against most BJP MPs across the 27 constituencies where elections are to be held over the coming days.

On the second aspect of caste arithmetic, Sinha says that the social engineering of castes through candidate selection, which the BJP had cobbled in 2014 and 2019 with the added help of some regional caste-based outfits, is now being challenged by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav.

SP’s attraction

“The SP’s poll pitch of PDA (Pichchda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) empowerment and its candidate selection has been very good. At the cost of his core vote base of Yadavs and Muslims, Akhilesh has given one or more candidates from almost every OBC and Dalit community that has any notable concentration. He has even achieved the unimaginable by fielding Dalit candidates on general category seats (Audhesh Prasad in Ayodhya and Ram Bhual Nishad in Sultanpur),” said Sinha.

Ravikant, a professor at the Lucknow University and a prominent Dalit ideologue, told The Federal that the BJP had, in the past two general elections, successfully cornered a huge chunk of non-Yadav OBC and non-Jatav Dalit votes by fielding candidates from these communities and, simultaneously, identifying icons – social, historical and mythical – of these caste groups and honouring them.

Dalit atrocities

“The BJP made one miscalculation. It thought that just fielding OBC and Dalit candidates and celebrating their icons was enough to win lasting loyalty. Under BJP rule, especially in the past five years, incidents of violence against Dalits shot up in Uttar Pradesh. Though the SP did not proactively protest against these, people from different Dalit sub-castes became wary of the BJP. What has compounded the BJP’s troubles is Modi’s failure to address economic issues of price rise and joblessness, both of which have a much higher adverse impact on Dalits than on forward castes,” Ravikant said.

The Dalit ideologue added that the BJP had, in 2022, contained “Dalit disaffection” by distributing free ration. Today, though, he says, while free ration continues to be distributed, “the Dalits now see through this charade; they want relief from rising prices, they want jobs and they want violence against them to stop. The SP is tapping into that simmering discontent with its PDA pitch”.

SP-Congress marriage

He added: “What has helped SP further is its alliance with the Congress party, which may not be strong at the grassroots, but is being viewed sympathetically by the Dalit and even some OBCs because, aside from having a Dalit president (Mallikarjun Kharge), its top leaders like Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi aggressively speak against atrocities on Dalits.”

Travelling across these constituencies, these political ground realities, and more, are inescapable. Prominent among these is also the swift shrinking of Dalit satrap Mayawati’s BSP, ironically, at a time when saving ‘Babasaheb’s Constitution’ which “empowered and liberated Dalits” has become a buzzword across Uttar Pradesh’s electoral landscape.

BSP’s decline

Ganga Ram Nishad, a resident of Goshainganj Assembly segment in Ambedkar Nagar Lok Sabha constituency, believes the BJP has “bullied Mayawati into silence” by misusing investigating agencies and that the SP is now the “only alternative” to the saffron party. What has convinced Ganga Ram to vote for SP candidate Lalji Verma even more is incumbent Ambedkar Nagar MP Ritesh Pandey’s switch to the BJP. Pandey had won the 2019 Lok Sabha battle from Ambedkar Nagar as a BSP candidate but moved to the BJP earlier this year and secured a ticket from the party to contest the seat again.

Ganga Ram says the “only reason” he had voted for Pandey in 2019 was because he was fielded by ‘Behenji’ (as Mayawati is widely known). Shyam Nishad, who runs a photocopy shop right next to Ganga Ram’s small house, too says he voted for Pandey last time but “would not make the same mistake” now.

Battle for Constitution

A vote for BJP in this election, says Shyam, would be a “vote against Babasaheb and his Samvidhan” (Constitution). Shyam is convinced that if the BJP returns to power, it would end caste-based reservations. “So many BJP leaders have said they want Modi to get 400 seats so that the Constitution can be changed. I have seen in the news; they want to end reservations... if SP-Congress come to power they will give sarkari naukri (government jobs),” Shyam asserted.

Wooing depressed groups

Modi has been asserting in his public rallies that “no one can take away reservations now”. Yet, the narrative that the BJP could “change the Constitution” and “eliminate caste-based reservations” has percolated down to the grassroots.

Ravikant believes that the widely held impression of Mayawati’s “political surrender before the BJP” coupled with the SP and Congress’ aggressive campaign on the plank of socio-economic justice and backed by a “fine selection of candidates” has helped the two INDIA allies court Dalits and OBCs effectively.

“Across almost every Dalit and OBC community that the BJP had won over since 2014, we are witnessing a split in this election... communities like Pasis, Kurmis, Koeris, Nishads, Binds are gravitating towards the SP and Congress though it is difficult to predict in what numbers,” Ravikant says.

Reservations an issue

Ram Kumar, who runs the NGO Dynamic Action Group, which highlights issues of violence against Dalits, believes that “the issue of the Constitution being undermined by the BJP” has acted as an “amplifier” among the two historically oppressed communities.

“Reservation is a major concern among Dalits and OBCs and I feel the INDIA bloc has succeeded in making people believe, I wouldn’t say whether rightly or wrongly, that the BJP will strike against caste-based reservation if it returns to power,” he said.

“So, there is a toxic cocktail of issues in Purvanchal – poverty, price rise, unemployment, undermining of the Constitution and also to a big extent the Centre’s Agniveer scheme. Since Modi’s politics and policies are responsible for all of this, naturally the BJP is feeling the heat. The next two phases of polling, in my view, will be the worst two phases in UP for the BJP despite Modi contesting from Varanasi,” Kumar said.