Why the results of the panchayat UP are no guarantee that the Samajwadi party will win the assembly elections
By Divesh Ranjan, Brijesh Kumar Rai, Sandeep Pandey *
The recent results of the Uttar Pradesh Panchayat elections indicate that candidates supported by the Samajwadi Party won more seats than candidates supported by the Bhartiya Janata Party in the election of district Panchayat members. Interestingly, the BJP-backed candidates were defeated in key Hindutva political strongholds like Ayodhya, Varanasi, and Mathura. This implies that the construction of a Ram temple will no longer seek votes.
However, a large number of the elected candidates, numbering more than 900, are independents whose alignment is not yet clear. So, based on the tenure of this Panchayat, we cannot accurately predict who will be the likely winner in the upcoming Assembly elections.
Can the BJP / National Democratic Alliance win the 2022 parliamentary elections in UP?
The BJP is the second party to win the recent Panchayat elections. Now he is doing his best to woo the independents so he can win the chairmanship of most of the Zila Panchayats and Block Panchayats, a game in which the BJP can outsmart any party due to its state power. and financial. He will certainly face very stiff competition in the Assembly elections, but there is always a good chance that he can win.
The anti-incumbent factor and the government’s failure to handle the Covid situation can have a severe impact on his chances of winning. However, it is repeatedly observed that Indian voters have short-lived memories. In Bihar’s elections last year, the apathy of the Bihar state government towards returning migrant workers did not appear to have had a negative impact on the election results.
Besides the pandemic crisis, there are other factors that create voter perception. The BJP has the strongest vote bank in the UP of any state. The BJP is very adept, with the help of the IT cell and the media, in polarizing voters on communitarianism and nationalism just before the elections to distract the public from bad governance. Finally, they had succeeded in creating a TINA factor, “if not Modi then who?” which clearly did not yield results in the West Bengal elections despite a high-sounding campaign.
Can the BJP be defeated?
If defeated, the main reason will be the pathetic handling of the Covid pandemic crisis which has exposed government failures and tarnished the image of the ruling party. It has shaken the faith of a large part of the population in the government. Unprecedented unemployment, growing income disparity, poor law and order are other reasons for people’s dissent.
Prior to this crisis, the government also witnessed the anguish of the population over the law amending the Citizenship Law and the National Register of Citizens and Agricultural Laws. The current farmer turmoil is sure to shake the BJP spectacle in western UP.
In terms of the caste equation, the Brahmins, Vaishyas and other advanced castes are traditional supporters of BJP. In the case of the western UP, in the last assembly elections the Jat community had overwhelmingly voted for the BJP, but this time it will likely vote for Rashtriya Lok Dal in large part because of the agitation of farmers.
The Vaishya community has also suffered greatly due to the foreclosure and various experiences of the BJP government such as demonetization and the goods and services tax. This resentment should be reflected in the election results. An alliance between the opposition parties could play a key role in the defeat of the BJP, just like in Tamil Nadu.
Can the SP, without an alliance, win the elections?
SP aspires to win the elections without any alliance. In the last state assembly elections, he fought in alliance with the Indian National Congress. SP lost 170 seats in 2nd position while INC lost 49 seats in 2nd row. The Bahujan Samaj party has become the biggest obstacle to the alliance.
The BSP received 22.2% of the vote, the SP 21.8% of the vote, the INC around 6.2% of the vote, while the NDA received 39.7% of the mandates in a total of 403 constituencies. These data indicate that for the SP alone, the fighting will drastically reduce its votes and may simply lack success, as in Bihar and Assam.
Based on the results of the panchayat elections, it may not be appropriate to predict a PS victory in the parliamentary elections, as it was not fought on the party symbol. People exhibit different voting behaviors in Parliament, Assembly and Panchayat elections. In Panchayat elections, it is based more on individual personality and connection rather than the party behind the candidate.
Therefore, the SP must not be misled and must think in terms of bringing the opposition parties together. However, due to his unpleasant experience with BSP and INC in the past, it remains to be seen whether Akhilesh Yadav is ready to build bridges with these two parties.
Although Akhilesh Yadav formed a Baba Saheb Vahini within his party during the last Ambedkar Jayanti, he would do well to explore an alliance with the Azad Samaj party of future Dalit leader Chandrashekhar Azad. SP should learn from the Secular Progressive Alliance’s seat allocation in Tamil Nadu which resulted in a huge victory for the alliance.
The role of BSP-AIMIM in the election
If BSP and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen meet in UP, then the beneficiary will be the BJP as in the Bihar and Assam Assembly elections where the secular vote was divided. This alliance will damage the SP alliance. The possibility of an alliance between BSP and SP seems negligible.
The role of the Indian National Congress in the elections
The INC must be realistic at this time. He must accept that he has lost his electoral base. The INC became the reason for the failure of the Mahagathbandhan alliance in the Bihar Assembly elections by contesting a large number of seats. He won just 19 out of 70 seats, a victory out of 27% of contested seats, while alliance partners like Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) won over 60% of the contested seats. contested seats.
He also lost the elections in Assam due to his lack of a popular face and his inability to form an alliance with newly founded parties that were the voice of Assam during the anti-CAA protests. In Bihar and Assam, where his ambition won, Congress lost heavily. While in the recent Tamil Nadu assembly elections, Congress made reasonable adjustments with its alliance partners, resulting in the great victory of the Progressive Secular Alliance.
Lessons to be drawn from the alliance policy
Looking at Table 2, if SP, BSP and INC were to fight together and could win all the seats where each of them lost less than 15% of the vote, then today this alliance would have been in power with a comfortable majority. Moreover, if the SP and the INC could win all the seats where each of them lost less than 20% of the vote, then they could form the government even without the support of BSP.
The tenure in the last UP Assembly election, the last Lok Sabha elections and the recent UP Panchayat elections make it clear that Congress has lost its large electoral base. In the next election, if he fights alone, he could barely win a few seats, but could hurt SP’s victory. If the INC compromises on its ambition and forms an alliance with SP and contests only for selected seats, then the alliance can emerge victorious. INC support for regional parties could bear fruit in the Lok Sabha elections.
In summary, if SP enters into an alliance with RLD, INC, SBSP, ASP and possibly AAP to control the secular vote split that will be caused by the BSP-AIMIM alliance, then the SP-led opposition alliance is likely to fail. to win.
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* Divesh Ranjan is a political analyst, Brijesh Kumar Rai is a former faculty member of IIT Guwahati, Sandeep Pandey is vice president of the Socialist Party (India) and social activist winner of the Magsaysay Prize
