Madhur Sharma, Delhi.They say the road to Delhi passes through Uttar Pradesh and rightly so. The state sends more members of parliament than any other state, eighty in number. So any party aspiring to be in power in Delhi focuses greatly on Uttar Pradesh. That is perhaps the reason why Narendra Modi’s opposition has invested all of their energy in Uttar Pradesh, to the extent that arch-rivals Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have come together with the aim to defeat the BJP.
While party leaders say the BJP will repeat their 2014 performance (when they won 72/80 seats), the demographics are not in their favour. The reason for the BJP’s victory in many of the seats was the dilution of opposition votes, particularly those of Muslims as each party would field a Muslim candidate. There is no such case this time as the two leading opposition parties are fielding common candidates. Muslim votes are also expected to converge as both the SP and BSP have traditionally received Muslim votes.
The convergence of Muslim votes has shown dividends earlier. Even when the BJP won an unprecedented victory in UP in 2017 state assembly elections, the party lost in Meerut city where its top leader, Laxmikant Bajpai, former state-chief, lost the elections. Meerut was also just one of the two districts (the other being Aligarh) where the BJP lost mayoral elections.
So while party leaders express confidence, the ground realities and previous results suggest that the road is not easy for them. Most opinion polls place BJP’s seats in the state to be around 40. This is a significant loss for the party and a significant gain for the opposition. There is also a belief that the party will witness a reduction of seats in other crucial states like Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar, which were overwhelmingly in favour of the BJP in 2014 but have lately given them trouble: the party barely won Gujarat state assembly elections and the party lost in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh not long ago, which were seen by many as the semi finals to the 2019 general elections.
So, since it is mostly about mathematics in the end, how does the BJP think it will manage to pull enough seats to return to power on 23 May 2019? It is believed that the BJP is secretly banking on territories it has made inroads in lately, such as the North East, West Bengal, and Odisha, but one needs to be cautious here.
While the party has made inroads in the North East (it has multiple state governments there), the party has faced desertion and flak in the wake of the introduction of the Citizenship Amendment Bill and the implementation of the National Register of Citizens in Assam. In Bengal too, one should not be overenthusiastic. While the party cadre is optimist, most observers say the party’s reasonable range is around 4-8 seats. A similar (or greater) impact may be made in Odisha. Odisha may in fact be the biggest surprise as the BJD’s Navin Patnaik’s one-man-rule finally seems to be witnessing a challenge. ‘There is No Alternative’ no longer holds true as the BJP is trying to place itself as the alternative to BJD and Patnaik.
Some inroads are also expected in Tamil Nadu where most opinion polls suggest the party may clinch up to 5-6 seats. Optimistic estimates suggest up to 8-13 seats in the state.
But the million dollar question remains: will of these gains in newer territories make up for the loss in Uttar Pradesh? One cannot say. The opposition is united as one against the BJP and even though the Congress and the Grand Alliance are not together as of now, there are voices that say that in case the Congress emerges as the single largest party (after the BJP that is short of majority), all other parties may join the Congress and we may witness UPA-3.
But one needs to take into account that while electoral mathematics is important, so is the sentiment. Rashtriya Lok Dal’s Jayant Chaudhary’s comments on Jats have hurt the Jat sentiment in Western Uttar Pradesh and there has been an upsurge in nationalistic fervor since the Pulwala attack in February and the subsequent Balakot airstrike and that may sway some votes. While nationalism and national security are not usual factors affecting voter behaviour in India, they may just make an impact this time, and if they do, it will mark a change in how Indian elections are planned in future.
So while the 2019 election may not sound as high-pitched as the one in 2014, a lot is at stake, and above all, these elections will redetermine the electoral importance of Uttar Pradesh and how Indians elections are planned in future and if national security can be a decisive factor. We shall get answers on 23 May.
Madhur Sharma is an independent journalist based out of New Delhi. He tweets @madhur_mrt.
