Given the reemergence of federalist politics across the country, it is very unlikely that the Bharatiya Janta Party will form a government in the electorally significant state of Uttar Pradesh, says political analyst Kumar Sanjay Singh. Factoring the ground lost by BJP in Western UP, the loss of livelihood and earning to marginal farmers in Poorvanchal, the economic failure of the Yogi Adityanath government, failure of communal polarization, the revival of social justice and shift from unitary politics, the author who is Associate Professor in the Department of History, Swami Shraddhanand College, Delhi University says that at best in UP there will be a hung assembly with SP-led alliance as the largest pre-poll alliance.

ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS IN GOA, MANIPUR, PUNJAB, UTTARAKHAND AND UTTAR PRADESH has been widely reported as the semi-finals of the forthcoming Parliamentary election in 2024. While all these elections will have a significant impact on the contours of the anti-BJP political alliance(s) that may be formed in the runup to the parliamentary election; the outcome of the UP assembly election may directly impact BJP’S standing as the dominant political force in India since 2014.

It is germane to point out that BJP’S superlative performance in the UP assembly election 2017 paved the way for not only demoralizing the opposition parties but also consolidated BJP’S position in the parliamentary election. Perhaps this explains why UP assembly election results are being awaited with eager anticipation.

It seems to me that the exit polls for the UP assembly election 2022 are once again destined to miss the target by a wide berth.

People of the subcontinent are known for their passion for politics which is milked by the mainstream media. It serves a three-course meal with the soup of opinion polls, the appetizer of exit polls and the main course of final results. Of late the poll predictions and the exit polls are often at variance with the final result of the election; West Bengal is the most recent example of pollsters exaggerating BJP’S performance in their opinion and exit polls. It seems to me that the exit polls for the UP assembly election 2022 are once again destined to miss the target by a wide berth.

People of the subcontinent are known for their passion for politics which is milked by the mainstream media. It serves a three-course meal with the soup of opinion polls, the appetizer of exit polls and the main course of final results.

Most exit polls suggest an electoral win for BJP, six pollsters suggest a landslide victory for the party matching its performance in the last assembly election. An aggregate of exit polls gives the BJP and its allies 241 seats, while the SP alliance is pegged at winning less than 150 seats. BSP and INC are slated to win 11 and 4 seats respectively in the poll of exit polls. It seems to me that the exit polls fail to take account of 6 significant factors that will adversely impact BJP’S electoral fortunes:

• BJP has lost considerable ground in western UP, which was the bridgehead of its dominance in states’ electoral politics. Both the central and state government bear the onus for this decline, centre’s farm laws were hugely unpopular amongst the peasantry and the state government was found wanting on the payment of sugarcane dues. This failure resulted in western UP becoming one of the bastions of the yearlong peasant movement.
• Eastern UP, known as Poorvanchal, did not see trenchant peasants. However, agriculture in this region is less prosperous than in western UP. Poorvanchal leads the tally in the state with the highest percentage of landholding below one hectare. With 84% of land holdings below one hectare, most of the farmers in the region are marginal farmers who cannot afford the loss of standing crops to stray cattle. Since stray cattle menace is considered to be a fall out of state government policy measures there is considerable disquiet against the state government.
• The state has failed on the economic front and has emerged as the third most poor state of India in Niti Ayog’s Multidimensional Poverty Index. 37.79% population of UP is poor. Youth and peasant household are the most affected from this Per capita income of the state lags behind that of the national average, with the growth rate rural income is the lowest in the state. Youth is facing unemployment which is made worse because of the reluctance of the government to fill existing vacancies in various departments. Recurrent mismanagement of recruitment procedures has resulted in protests by the youth, the most recent being the agitation against the railway recruitment board which was crushed by brutal police repression.  The pro-market policy of the centre failed to reign in rising prices of essential commodities which have hurt urban and rural consumers, especially the salaried classes.
• Failure of the campaign of communal polarization, which has served BJP’S electoral ambitions in the past. In the current election, BJP failed to create a majoritarian polarization because of its losing traction amongst the peasants, youth and to a lesser extent amongst the salaried Paradoxically its policies of CAA, cow vigilantism, lockdown of abattoirs, restrict on the sale of non-vegetarian items, etc. which are but dog-whistle for the demonization of minorities resulted in cementing electoral divisions that existed amongst minority voters.

• Revival of the agenda of social justice that not only witnessed the resurrection of the Samajwadi Party that emerged in the heydays of Mandal era politics in the Gangetic region but also resulted in the drift of several non-Yadav OBC leaders from BJP to SP.
• The shift of the political topography that had between 2014 to 2019 favoured Unitary politics to a topography which is inclined toward federalist politics.
  Prof. Subbarao had in his seminal works pointed out that Indian politics follows a long-term subterranean trend whereby political topography oscillates between the alternate trends of unitary politics and federalist. Several trends testify to the emergence and consolidation of the trend towards federal politics such as:a) tussle between state and centre over prior approval to CBI,
  b) over respective jurisdiction of centre and state over transfer and posting of IAS cadre officers,
  c) over jurisdiction of the Governor vis a vis state government in running state administration and in the appointment of Vice-Chancellors of state universities; and
  d) especially the divergence of the rate of the electoral success of the party in power in the centre in parliamentary vs assembly elections.

If these six trends are taken into account of exit polls for the UP assembly election would need to be revised as under:

BJP+: 145 TO 165

SP+: 160 TO 190

BSP:    16 TO 30

INC:        6 TO 20

OTHERS: 1 TO 4

In spite of losing traction amongst peasants, OBCs, unemployed youth and minorities, BJP+ is still poised to gain upwards of 150 seats in UP because of the specificity of BJP’S political and electoral strategies. In his seminal monograph on BJP, Shri Pitambar Dutt Kaushik had noted that the party utilizes electoral victories to establish and consolidate its party organization, he had further indicated that the party organization replicates the units of administrative structure whereby a hierarchical and multitiered organizational structure is created linking the basic units at village level to the state capital.

With such an elaborate organizational structure, the decline in BJP’S vote share is never as precipitous as that of personality-driven political parties. The wide range between the lower and higher range of seats being 25 seats of BJP and 30 seats for SP need explanation. There are some 10 seats where BJP and SP are locked in a close contest. Additionally, SP and BSP are in a close contest in approximately 5 seats. Even in the 2017 UP assembly election, many seats were decided by a margin of 2000 votes and below, since there was a strong Modi wave BJP succeeded in closing most of these close contests. In this election, SP is poised to turn these close contests in its favour.