UP: post-election coming together of parties likely

Elections to the legislative assembly of Uttar Pradesh are due in 2017. Election rallies and campaigning have already begun. Uttar Pradesh (UP), being the largest state in terms of population, is also the most important for national politics. It represents 80 seats, the largest for any state, in Lok Sabha. Nine out of the past 15 prime ministers have come from UP. Political pundits have started analysing the political landscape in view of the upcoming state assembly elections.

Leading political representatives in UP politics have not changed during last 25-30 years. Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav are still defining the political landscape of state politics. This article aims to examine the calculus of coalition politics with an emphasis of the current political situation. Some frictions in the current political environment are discussed which might result in post-election instability. 

The Congress largely dominated initial state assemblies (except in 1967) until the win of Janata Party in 1977 with 82% seat share, soon after Emergency was lifted. The coalition era in the state started with the 1967 election results when the Congress was short of 16 seats for majority.

In 1969, it was left two seats short of a majority. However, the Congress was still the dominant party, with small margins to form a majority government. No single party won absolute majority in UP in the elections of 1989, 1993, 1996 and 2002. For the latter three elections, the winners had a seat share of 42%, 41% and 35%, respectively. The margins of victory – the differences in the seat share of the winner and the runner up – were as low as 16%, 15% and 11%.

The margins have increased during the last two elections. The assemblies of 1993, 1996 and 2002 also saw formation of coalition governments. In 1993, a coalition government of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Samajwadi Party (SP) was formed. However, this coalition, and hence the government, did not survive for long and fresh elections were held in 1996. The BSP and the SP separated and the political equations produced an unclear mandate.

The BJP saw about the same result as that of 1993 elections, with 41% seat share, whereas the SP and the BSP won 25% and 15% share, respectively. The Congress and the BSP had formed a pre-election alliance to fight the 1996 elections but they fared badly, winning just 23%. It was, perhaps, the most unstable time for Uttar Pradesh politics. After immense tweaking of all forces, a surprising coalition between the BJP and the BSP was formed.

Another unclear mandate arose in the 2002 assembly elections with the SP turning out to be the largest party with 143 out of 403 seats. The BJP and the BSP again joined hands and with the help of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) of Ajit Singh, formed the government. However, this government did not last long and a new government was formed by the SP with support from many smaller players.

The 2007 elections gave a clear mandate and the BSP won the assembly with an absolute majority. It won 206 out of 403 seats. The 2012 elections produced an absolute majority in favour of the SP, with 224 out of 403 seats. Thus, the last two assemblies have had strong one-party governments in contrast to unstable and fractured governments in the previous four assemblies. The 2014 Lok Sabha elections in the state had also produced a strong result in favour of the BJP, which won 71 out of 80 seats.

Does it mean that coalition possibilities have faded in Uttar Pradesh politics? The answer is possibly “no”. The political dynamics of pre-election coalition are very different from post-election associations. In the pre-election coalitions, partners make a conscious choice to fight elections together whereas the post-election coalitions are need-based associations.

In the pre-election coalitions, the parties do not counter each other in any constituency and divide the constituencies to fight elections. In the post-election associations, the approach is that of loss minimisation. Uttar Pradesh has historically been a battleground for post-election associations as against pre-election alliance (especially 1993 and 1996 elections).

Cong looks for alliance
The possibility of a pre-election coalition seems dim at the moment but it will be too early to comment on that. Given the historical combat between Mayawati and Mulayam, it seems unlikely that they will come together as a coalition. The BJP, however, is ruling at the Centre, and given its performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, it will aim to form the government on its own.

Sheila Dikshit, the chief ministerial candidate of the Congress, claimed that the party will fight elections alone and compete with the BJP, the BSP and the SP. The Congress is not in a position to fight elections on its own and hence might be looking for partnering with the BSP or the SP, either pre-elections or post-elections.

The recent elections in Bihar are indicative of the relevance of coalition politics in the Indian context. Bihar saw its most surprising swing in political battles in the 2015 state elections when long time political rivals Janta Dal (United) and  Rashtriya Janata Dal formed a pre-election coalition with the Congress to fight the BJP. The results were surprising. This grand coalition registered a strong win with 73% seats share.

It is worth noting that BJP had won 22 out of 40 seats in Lok Sabha elections just a year before that. Therefore, the pre-election coalition changed the dynamics drastically, in less than a year. The current situation in UP is different. The BJP posted a strong win in the last Lok Sabha elections. In the current scenario, there are four big parties: BJP, SP, BSP and Congress. The possibilities of pre-elections alliance seems dim but we might expect drastic post-election associations.

(The writer teaches at OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana)