Sohan Lal listens to his customers while brewing sugary tea on crimson charcoal. His customers are busy discussing how their neighbourhood would poll later in the week—just five odd kilometres ahead of Sikanderabad, connecting Delhi with Bulandshahar.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate here is a close relative of former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has changed its candidate as the incumbent faced 'local anti-incumbency. "But we all got free ration," says one of Sohan Lal's customers. "And suraksha (security)," Sohan Lal, a Kumhar or potter by caste, adds.
The Khurja-Bulandshahar belt is famous for its pottery and is home to a large population of minor backward castes, including Gujjar and Prajapati. These small miscellaneous castes groups could decide the outcome of elections in many constituencies in the first three phases of UP elections.
This differentiator can get more pronounced when dominant castes groups are mobilising around key contenders - the upper castes for the BJP, Yadavs-Muslims for the SP and Jatavs for BSP.
The SP's renewed bid in this election to wean away a section of intermediary castes among the agrarian communities is being tested against BJP's "SR" factor. The acronym stands for safety and security during the Yogi Adityanath rule and free ration provided to the poor during the pandemic.
'Suraksha' is a common refrain in Chief Minister Adityanath's election speeches. He has sought to underline the difference in the law and order situation during his rule and the previous one under SP's Akhilesh Yadav.
The Samajwadi Party has sought to counter this by tempering its minority pitch and wooing Jats and the most backward castes. Alliance with the Rashtriya Lok Dal and the influence of the two top BJP ministers who defected to the SP - Swami Prasad Maurya and Dharam Singh Saini- is being tested in western UP seats.
From Saharanpur bordering Uttarakhand hills to Soron on the banks of Ganga in Kasgunj, which will poll on Sunday, it is being closely watched how gardening communities, like Sainis, have voted in the Meerut division or how Mauryas, Kurmis have decided their poll preferences in Sambhal, Badaun, Bareilly and Shahjahanpur. It is of interest if these castes will be swayed by the SP's social justice plank promising swabhiman or pride and caste census to subaltern communities.
After several elections, Jats in pockets of western UP seem to exude a sense of ownership in the RLD. But this phenomenon is more pronounced in districts north of Delhi. In Aligarh, Mathura, Agra and Bulandshahar, this sentiment is scattered. A similar sense of ownership is being exuded by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) 's core support base among Jatavs.
Sandeep Jatav uses a catapult to scare monkeys away from his fruit cart opposite Mujaria Thana near Bilsi in Badaun. "Saikal ka zor hai (the SP is in the lead)," he says. He admits his vote will go to the BSP on being probed further.
But the BSP's minority candidates relying on the Dalit-Muslim coalition face a strong challenge from alliance nominees as the community attempts to restrict the division of votes. It seems the minority voters are mobilising around the SP despite Mayawati handpicking strong Muslim candidates in Muzaffarnagar, Moradabad, Sambhal and Badaun.
The third phase will see voting in areas traditionally been the SP strongholds. The Etawah-Mainpuri belt has a substantial Yadav population. But the BJP successfully sneaked into these districts in 2017 by mobilising all non-Yadav backward communities. The SP could win just 5 out of 29 seats in this region.
The BJP has sought to reiterate its anti-SP coalition by giving a large chunk of nominations to minor OBCs, like Lodhas, Shakyas and Mauryas.
Union minister SP Singh Baghel's candidature from Karhal is part of this narrative to bring on board and send a strong message to smaller subaltern castes, like shepherds, as the BJP attempts to keep its backwards-upper caste coalition intact.
(Sumit Pande is a journalist)
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