Who Will Win the UP Elections 2022

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Who Will UP?

India will soon witness a series of events that will decide India’s political picture of 2024. People of Punjab, UP, Goa, and Uttarakhand will be deciding the fate of political parties next year. While the economy, development, inflation, growth, promise, etc do create a huge impact during elections but this time we have a bigger game-changing factor which is COVID-19. Be it any of the states where elections are going to be conducted, COVID-19 management will be an issue. All these states at one time or another were struggling with the rising number of deaths, vaccination issues, and oxygen shortage in hospitals. India’s biggest political party, BJP is in power in three of these states — UP, Goa, and Uttarakhand. After a shameful defeat in Bengal elections and a pan-India Anti-BJP campaign/sentiment because of farmer’s protests. BJP has pulled up the socks to make government in these three states again. Punjab is not on the bucket list of the BJP, so there the party won’t try much harder. Out of these three states, all eyes will be on Yogi’s UP. Yogi’s 5-year work and Modi’s image will be directly questioned this time. Though the 2019 Lok Sabha Election results were a tight slap on the face of Mahagathbandhan, this time Samajwadi party is trying its best to beat BJP.

Why Yogi must be Voted Again?

Though some all-time leftists with their pet dialogue “Darr ka Mahaul Hai” will deny Yogi winning again in 2022, the reality is that every survey shows the growing popularity of CM Yogi. “Kiski sarkar aayegi iss baar?” asked a reporter to women in a market of UP. “Yogi ki sarkar aayegi,” all women said unanimously. “Dange kam ho gayein hain, aurat surakshit mehsoos krti hai” was the reason. The NCRB report published in September 2021 revealed that Uttar Pradesh had the lowest crime rate since 2013.

Source: NCRB Data 2021

The GSDP of UP during the fiscal year 2017–18 was estimated at the US $190 billion (₹14,46,000 crore) while during the fiscal year 2020–21 is estimated to be ₹19,40,527 crore (revised estimates) on March 31, 2021. The CM who is usually targeted because of his saffron identity brought worth Rs. 1.88 trillion investments in the last 3.5 years.

A Roadblock in Yogi’s Winning Chariot

BJP and its ministers are famous for balancing the caste equation throughout the cabinet. The union cabinet reshuffle is a good example of social engineering done by the BJP. Though elections must be fought on a government’s performance, the caste system plays an important role in UP. In 2017, Yogi’s name was quite controversial. Three names were there in the mind of BJP and RSS — Yogi Adityanath (a Thakur), Keshav Prasad Maurya (a Brahmin), and Manoj Sinha (a Bhumihar). Brahmins play a huge role in UP elections. In 2002, 50% of Brahmins voted for BJP, then in 2007, the tally went down to 42% and again down to 38% in the 2012 elections. But in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, 82% of Brahmins voted for BJP that led to BJP’s huge success. SP and BSP always place their focus on the Jatavs, Muslims, and Yadavs which make up 40% of the state’s population while Brahmins on which BJP relies form only 9–11% of the population. The only problem for SP and BSP is that their own vote bank isn’t united.

Are Brahmins really upset with BJP now?

“Rumors are carried by haters, spread by fools, and accepted by idiots.” After UP Police encountered gangster Vikas Dubey (who was also a Brahmin), some people started spreading a lie that the Yogi government is behind the Brahmin community. A few months after this encounter, someone came with a number that 84 Brahmin youths have been encountered after Vikas Dubey. Brahmins feeling unsafe and being treated stepmotherly is the biggest lie peddled over media. If you go down the lanes of the history of UP, you will find Govind Ballabh Pant, Kamlapati Tripathi, Sripati Mishra, and Narayan Dutt Tiwari have been the past CMs of UP, and all hail from the Brahmin community. The only unimportant fact highlighted by the media without any reason is that it’s been 31 years since UP got a Brahmin CM. But still, Brahmins hold good positions in politics and administration of UP.

Will Samajwadi Party be able to do anything?

The vote share % of 2017 Legislative Elections clearly showed that BJP is the boss with 40% vote share while SP-BSP has 22% each and Congress has 6% vote share. As the C-voter survey predicts Yogi getting another term with 254 seats and 120 seats for SP, Akhilesh Yadav would need to put a dent of 20% in the vote share of BJP to win, which is of course near to impossible. Therefore, SP winning 200+ seats can assure his return to UP as CM.

Another major task for Akhilesh Yadav would be to handle the problem of vote split between BSP and Congress. Both the parties are almost finished in UP and have a presence for just namesake. BSP has more chances of winning in Punjab with Akali Dal as compared to winning in UP. Therefore, SP has to gather the vote share of BSP+Congress by showing it to the voters that voting for these 2 parties will be irrelevant.

Another scenario could be a possible alliance with SP and BSP because BSP still holds control over 62% of the Dalit vote bank (21% of the population) along with Jatavs.

As the census only records the numbers of Religious Minorities and Scheduled Castes/Dalits, all figures of U.C. and O.B.C.s are just estimations based on sample surveys or made by political analysts

UC/General Category Hindus are 20–23%

The 2 largest communities are Brahmins and Thakurs/Rajputs. There are other UC Communities like Vaishyas and Baniyas(who mostly live in urban areas), Tyagis, Kayasthas, Khatris, and Bhumihars and Hindu OBCs are 43–45%.

The prominent Hindu OBC communities are

• Yadavs — 8–9%, the largest OBC community in UP
• Kurmis -4–5 %
• Lodh/Lodhi Rajputs — 4%
• Jats — 2–3% (live in Western UP)
• Rajbhar — 2–4 % (live in Eastern UP)
• Kushwaha/Maurya/ Shakya — (5–6%)
• Nishad/Mallah — 4–5%
• Other OBC communities in the state are Pals, Kashyaps, Prajapatis, Nais, Gujjars, etc
• SCs are 21.1%

U.P. has the largest SC population in India, most SCs in the state live in rural areas. The prominent SC castes are:

• Jatavs/Chamars(56% of the total SC population)
• Pasis (15.9% of the total SC population)
• Dhobis (6%)
• Koris (6%)
• Balmiki/Valmiki (3.3%)
• Khatiks
• Dhanuks
• Muslims are 19.3%

Since the 2014 LS Election, the BJP has been performing well on Key caste blocks

BJP Dominated blocks

• Brahmins — 9–11% share — Key rivals — Congress, BSP
• Rajputs — 7–8% share
• Other UCs including Kayasths, Baniyas — 2–4 % share; Key rivals — Congress, SP
• OBC population excluding Yadavs — 34–36 % share; Key rivals — SP, BSP, and other smaller parties
• STs- 0.1–0.5%
• Total BJP Dominated Blocks share = 54%

Blocks where BJP competes well

• Non-Jatav Dalits: 9–10%, Key rivals- BSP and SP
• Total BJP Strong Blocks share = 63%
• BJP needs to win just 65% of these blocks to win the UP election

Non-BJP Opposition Dominated Blocks

• Jatav/Chamar Dalits: 11–12%; Most likely to vote for BSP, though some youth in Western UP could vote for the Azad Samaj Party of Chandrashekhar Azad
• Yadavs: 8–9%; 80–90% of the Community is expected to vote for the SP
• Jats: 2–3%; due to the recent farmer agitations the community which had stood rock solid behind BJP from 2014 has turned against it in large numbers and stands to vote for any prospective SP+RLD alliance
• Muslims: 19–20%; 90% of the community is expected to vote for non-BJP parties depending upon the constituency and who is more suited to defeat the BJP. Though the SP is expected to be the first choice of the community in any generic situation