Keeping up with UP | Uttar Pradesh by-polls: Caste remains pivotal amid slogans and strategies
Chief minister Yogi is leading the by-poll campaign from the front; Akhilesh counters with PDA strategy, fields five women candidates to dent CM's support base
Lately, every election in Uttar Pradesh (UP), be it for a single or multiple seats, has turned into a do-or-die battle for political parties; or at least that’s the way the parties seem to be going about the by-polls.
There was a time, perhaps until the mid-2000s, when chief ministers, cutting across party lines, delegated the campaigning for by-polls to the local leadership and monitored things from Lucknow. The trend of late has been of CMs leading from the front as they believe that their personal, and political, prestige is at stake.
Political analysts recall how once the Samajwadi Party (SP) founder-president Mulayam Singh Yadav had reprimanded his son Akhilesh Yadav for campaigning in a by-poll, soon after becoming chief minister and then losing the seat too.
Even chief ministers and leaders like Kalyan Singh, Rajnath Singh and Ram Prakash Gupta or prior to that ND Tiwari, and Vir Bahadur Singh used to dismiss queries on their plans to campaign for by-polls, saying their parties have competent leaders who would lead the poll rallies and meetings. Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati, on the other hand, rarely even contested by-polls, let alone campaigns. But now, in a charged political scenario, even Mayawati has fielded candidates on all nine seats.
As UP heads for the battle for nine assembly seats on November 20 -- which numerically will make no difference to the health of the ruling BJP or main opposition, the SP -- Yogi has not only himself gone on a poll campaign blitzkrieg but has deployed an army of ministers, MLAs and party functionaries for door-to-door campaigning in all the constituencies. Yogi is determined to turn the tables on SP after a setback in the recent Lok Sabha elections, which had brought him under pressure with some ministers demanding a change in leadership in the state. From granular poll management to the bombardment of polarising slogans, Yogi is managing the show. He is targeting the SP and describing PDA (pichde or backward classes, Dalits and alpsankhyak (minorities) as the 'Production house of Dangal, Apradhi'.
The SP, on its part, has reaffirmed its commitment to the PDA formula by fielding five women candidates in the elections from the Muslim, OBC and Dalit communities. The SP leadership is keen to continue the winning momentum until the 2027 assembly polls besides remaining critical to the Opposition bloc. The Congress leadership agreed to let the SP contest all the nine seats, much against the wishes of the state leaders. Nonetheless, the results will be a message to their cadres besides a test of their politics.
The nine seats witnessing a straight battle between Yogi and Akhilesh are spread out across the state — Meerapur( Muzaffarnagar), Kundarki (Moradabad), Khair ( Aligarh) and Ghaziabad in western UP, Sisamau (Kanpur), Karhal ( Mainpuri) and Katehari (Ambedkarnagar) in central UP, Majhawan (Mirzapur) and Phulpur (Prayagraj) in eastern UP. The SP had won four of these seats, the BJP and its current allies five in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.
The contest is purely on caste and communal lines with developing the backward constituencies figuring only in discussions and poll promises. The caste sentiments are so strong that they filter down to prominent OBC and Dalit castes – like Yadavs and Shakya in Karhal or Kurmi Vs Nishad in Katehari; Meerapur and Kundarki will vote on communal lines with Phulpur not far behind.
Initially, 10 seats were to go to the by-polls. Milkipur (Ayodhya), which sent its sitting SP MLA Awadhesh Prasad to the Lok Sabha from Ayodhya, was the highlight of the by-poll show. But the Election Commission of India deferred the elections in Milkipur on technical grounds.
Focus now is on the Karhal seat in Mainpuri, the stronghold of the Yadav family, which has never lost any election there since the early 1990s. Nathu Singh had won the first election in 1957 as a PSP (Praja Socialist Party) member. Thereafter, socialists won the seat under different banners -- Swatantra Party, Lok Dal, and BKD. Thus, it’s a tough call for the BJP, which has used the ‘Baramati (Maharashtra) formula’ to embarrass the Yadav clan.
In the same way the BJP fielded Ajit Pawar's wife Sunetra against Supriya Sule, veteran politician Sharad Pawar’s daughter, the BJP found a disgruntled member of the late Mulayam Singh Yadav’s family: Anujesh Yadav is the son-in-law of Mulayam’s brother Abhay Ram and brother-in-law of SP MP Dharmendra Yadav. Anujesh’s mother Urmila Devi had twice represented the SP in the UP assembly. She was elected from the then assembly constituency of Ghiror where the party still has some support.
Yogi used a two-pronged strategy besides forcing a contest within the family. One, he tried to mine the sensitive religious sentiments of the Yadavs by raising the Krishna Janmabhoomi issue at his rally; Yadavs, as we know, are Krishna devotees. In his speech, Yogi said, “The BJP now has a plan to respect the public sentiments of the people for Lord Krishna in Mathura, but SP leadership remains silent. After all, how long will Krishna Kanhaiya will wait?” The chief minister worded his comments carefully as the Krishna Janmabhoomi dispute is sub-judice.
Secondly, he hit out at Akhilesh Yadav for surrendering to the Congress, a party his father had never trusted. Besides addressing rallies, the chief minister has deployed ministers including deputy CM Brajesh Pathak and Asim Arun, besides a couple of MLAs to counter the hold of the Yadav family on the seat.
In the SP camp, the family has gone all out to ensure that their candidate Tej Pratap Yadav, a close family member, wins the seats. Dimple Yadav, Dharmendra Yadav and Shivpal Singh Yadav are at the forefront of the campaign.
Another seat of interest is Phulpur where at stake is the prestige of deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya, who had seemingly raised the banner of revolt against Yogi. Meerapur is a test of Union minister and Rashtriya Lok Dal leader, Jayant Chaudhury's popularity.
Sunita Aron is a consulting editor with the HT based in Lucknow. You can find her on X as @overto. The weekly column, Keeping up with UP tackles everything from politics to social and cultural mores in the country's most populous state. The views expressed are personal.
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