JOIN USBackwards, not Brahmins, turn elections in UP
Former finance minister Arun Jaitley managed Uttar Pradesh assembly polls for the BJP many times over. He often described the UP polity as a fluid mass of influential squires and local strongmen who float about in search of the best available option to win the next elections.
In a milieu where winnability and not party loyalty becomes the touchstone in candidate selection, party-hopping is an asset. Diversity, if anywhere, is abundantly displayed in the curriculum vitae of serious ticket seekers. Political opportunism is not a drag.
So former union minister Jitin Prasada's leap of faith into the BJP should not come as a surprise. For the scion of the former principality of Shahajahapur, though, this would be the first errand outside the Congress fold.
Prasada is now a member of a new parivaar, a family which is perpetually in the election mode. Bengal elections are over. The second wave of Covid-19 has abated. The next big test is UP. Prasada's BJP induction thus marks the beginning of the election season in UP. Hear the bugles trill, see the flag is flung.
After a series of meetings between the BJP and RSS top brass, a course correction seems to have been worked out by the ruling dispensation ahead of the Uttar Pradesh elections. No shakeup at the top is expected.
But the BJP is battle-ready with a plan of action to consolidate its position - both politically and through the distribution and delivery of aid.
To salvage public perception battered by the ravaging pandemic, the Yogi government is working on three fronts. It has already distributed free ration to the poor and rolled out Rs 1,000 financial aid to daily wagers. A massive inoculation drive to avoid another Covid wave is in the works.
Many more schemes are probably in the offing. But would all this be enough to salvage the trail of death and despair?
Herein the import of political management assumes importance.
The performance of a political party in an election - apart from other factors- is critically dependent upon its ability to build social coalitions to mop up a majority votes in the first past the post system.
Both in the 2017 Assembly polls and 2019 LS elections, BJP got twice as many or more votes than any of its nearest competitors. A considerable gap in the votes polled separated it and the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance in the last elections.
The massive lead was due to the BJP's ability to stitch a social alliance between its core upper caste-middle class base and the intermediary castes, constituting more than 50 per cent of the state's electorate.
Within this segment, the mobilisation of non-Yadav backward proprietorial castes like Kurmis and Lodhs helped BJP reach a threshold to challenge both the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
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The top-up, or incremental vote, which led to an exponential conversion of votes into seats, came from most backward communities and non-Jatav schedule caste votes, which were part of the BSP's coalition umbrella.
The recently concluded panchayat polls indicate the SP would be the primary challenger to the BJP in the 2022 UP elections.
The Congress is losing steam, and BSP's Mayawati has performed the role of an advisor than that of an opposition party.
Akhilesh Yadav's ability to mount a challenge on the BJP would depend on his ability to create an umbrella coalition of sub-castes within the non-proprietary backward and schedule castes communities.
Kanshi Ram first initiated this experiment in the heartland politics. The former BSP chief mobilised most backward castes (MBCs) like Kushwaha, Maurya, Bind, Nishaad, Koeri, Mallah, Rajbhar, Nenua Chauhan, which form small yet coherent social blocks categorised as per their vocation in the jajmani system.
This formula was later well understood and subsequently emulated by Nitish Kumar in Bihar, who sought to stitch a social alliance of Dalits, MBCs and Maha-Dalits with other non-Yadav OBCs.
In UP, however, this amorphous group has slowly galvanised around the BJP. The party has made a sustained effort to mobilise these communities. It made Keshav Maurya the deputy CM in 2017. The BSP's most vocal MBC leader Swamy Prasad Maurya is with the BJP.
No political party in UP has ever given a gubernatorial assignment to a community leader. Baby Rani Maurya is now the governor of Uttarakhand.
The impact on the ground is for everyone to see.
In the last Lok Sabha elections, Akhilesh Yadav's cousin and sitting MP Dharmendra Yadav lost from Badaun, which the SP had been winning since 1996. The constituency has a high percentage of Yadav and Muslim voters.
The BJP won this seat in the last Lok Sabha elections by fielding Swamy Prasad Maurya's daughter Sanghamitra. And Dharmendra Yadav lost this seat despite contesting as a joint candidate of the SP-BSP alliance because a large section of non-Yadav OBCs shifted towards the BJP.
Dalits had BR Ambedkar, but MBCs never had an icon. In 2007, a large section voted for the BSP. In 2012, the SP was able to wean away a section. Repulsed by Jatav domination in the BSP and Yadavs in SP, these communities have since 2014 sought a larger share in the pie.
The BJP tapped into the aspirations of the MBCs seeking to draw parity with upwardly mobile communities like Kurmis and Yadavs, the biggest beneficiaries of the Mandal disruption.
In the last five years, though, some of these social groups of parties representing them find themselves estranged by the BJP. The Apna Dal, which has a support base among the Kurmis east of Lucknow, does not have any representation in the union council. Its leader Anupriya Patel has since maintained a studied silence.
Om Prakash Rajbhar has walked out of the NDA in UP. Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan is flexing his muscles in western UP.
The Rashtriya Lok Dal and other sub-regional players are trying to find their feet after the farmer agitation. The Aam Admi Party is attempting to make a foray as well. It offers to lend some heft among the upper-castes and middle castes if it finds space in a non-BJP coalition.
All these parties and other small players are waiting on the sidelines to decide their future course of action. They will wait for another couple of months to figure out which way the wind is blowing. By October, we will get a clearer picture of who is with whom.
Jitin Prasada's entry is aimed to send a message to BJP core voters, that is, Brahmins. The real battle for the state, however, will be fought on a different turf.
Backwards remain the building block in UP politics, and their mobilisation is the key to success in state politics.
Will the Samajwadi Party offer an alternative, inclusive and better power-sharing formula to the non-Yadav backwards and a section of Dalits.
One caught a glimpse of Akhilesh Yadav's intent earlier this year when the SP chief promised to re-instate reservation in promotions for Scheduled Castes employees if his party were to return to power. The SP will have to be more inclusive in words and deeds to shed the tag of being a caste-centric party.
(The writer is an independent journalist)
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.