Trumpet fades as lotus blooms again in UP

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s stunning victory in the recently concluded Uttar Pradesh assembly polls may have baffled many pollsters as the party beat a perceived anti-incumbency wave accentuated by rising prices, farmer agitation and desertion by a section of its loyal OBC voters. A deeper analysis of the results of the elections, however, reveals that the saffron party, which, despite the win, saw its tally of seats declining sharply from 313 in 2017 polls to 255 in the recent elections, still managed to increase its vote share by over 2% – a feat, which is now being attributed to the support from the Dalits.

Political experts opine that around half of the Dalits, who constitute about 21% of the state’s population, may have voted for the BJP in the recent assembly elections and not only made up for the ruling party’s loss of the OBC voters to the alliance led by the Samajwadi Party (SP), but also helped raise its vote share.

It is also believed that the BJP also managed to make a dent into the BSP supremo Mayawati’s core vote-bank of the Jatavs – a Dalit sub-caste. It is estimated that around 5% ‘Jatavs’ may have voted for the saffron party.

The BJP leaders in the state attribute this groundswell of support among the Dalits to the ruling party’s massive outreach efforts, its endeavour to ensure that the benefits of social welfare schemes reach them and a carefully crafted electoral strategy, which included nurturing and promoting leaders from the Dalit community within the party.

The leaders also believe that making sure that the free ration scheme for the poor reaches the Dalits helped the party win the loyalty of the voters of the community that finally preferred the saffron party over Mayawati. No wonder that the new Uttar Pradesh government is mulling to extend the scheme at least till the next Lok Sabha elections due in 2024.

There were around 15 crore beneficiaries of the free ration scheme in the state. Under the scheme the Antyodaya Card holders get 35 kg of free ration every month while the Grihasthi Card holders get 5 kg of free ration per unit every month. ‘’A large number of beneficiaries hail from the Dalit community,’’ said a UP BJP leader here while speaking to DH.

Also read: Dalits: BSP’s loss, gains for BJP, AAP

The BJP, over the last few years, has made efforts to nurture Dalit leadership within the party, especially in the regions, where the voters of the community are in large numbers.

That promoting local Dalit leaders, including G Dharmesh and former Uttarakhand governor Baby Rani Maurya enabled the party to reap rich electoral dividends was evident in the recent polls. It was particularly evident in Agra district, which was considered to be the epicentre of Dalit movement and a bastion of Mayawati, who had, incidentally, launched her party’s election campaign from there. The BJP swept the polls in Agra winning all the nine assembly seats. The BSP had won eight of the nine seats in Agra district in 2007 and 2012 assembly polls.

The strategy worked elsewhere as well and the saffron party managed to win a whopping 63 of the 84 reserved seats in the recent assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.

The experts believe that the shift in the Dalit votes, initially the ‘non-Jatavs’, toward the BJP had started since 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The ‘non-Jatavs’ had played a significant role in the BJP’s massive victory in UP in 2014 LS polls,’’ said political analyst J P Shukla. The BJP had won 73 of the 80 LS seats in UP in 2014.

That the Dalit voters migrated from the BSP to the BJP was also evident in the declining electoral graph of the former in the successive polls in Uttar Pradesh. The BSP had secured 30.43 per cent votes in 2007 when it had formed the government in the state with 206 seats.

Also read: In Karnataka, BJP’s Dalit outreach banks on policy, perception

In 2012 assembly polls, its share of votes tumbled to 25.91% and the tally of seats declined to just 80. In the 2014 LS polls, the BSP secured 19.77% votes and failed to open its account. In 2017 assembly polls, Mayawati’s party slightly increased its vote share, but finished with a meagre 19 seats. In the recently concluded polls, the BSP’s vote share registered a sharp decline and came down to 12.83 with only one seat in its kitty.

Some pollsters may argue that the ‘Jatavs’ are still with Mayawati, but then the question will arise as to whether the BSP did not get any vote from the other communities, including Muslims and the upper castes.

The BSP’s former state president Ram Achal Rajbhar, who had resigned from the party and joined the SP a few months back, has an explanation.

‘’It will be a great mistake to think that the Jatavs are with Mayawati...in the 12.83% votes of the BSP, there are many from the upper castes, Muslims and also the OBCs. The BSP nominees from these communities must also have got the votes of their caste members. I think only five per cent Jatavs are with Mayawati,’’ Rajbhar, who won the recent polls from Ambedkar Nagar district, said.

‘’More than 20 percent of Jatavs may have voted for the BJP in the recent assembly polls,’’ said Shukla. He also said that the BJP’s stunning performance in the first phase of the polling on 58 seats in western region of the state could be attributed to the shift of the Dalit voters to it, which went beyond making up for the saffron party’s loss of the Jat votes to the SP-led alliance. The BJP won 46 of the 58 seats in the western Uttar Pradesh.

Mayawati, however, does not think that the Jatavs had deserted her. She attributed her party’s dismal showing to the ‘shift’ of the Muslim votes to the SP and not of the Dalits.

“The Dalits are still with us. That they have shifted their allegiance is a propaganda by the media,’’ claimed a senior BSP leader.

The BJP leaders, however, said that ‘’increased awareness, rising literacy’’ and increasing use of social media platforms had made the Dalits more assertive. ‘’The younger generation of the Dalits may not blindly be guided by caste considerations,’’ remarked a senior UP BJP leader.

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