Political shake-up in Uttar Pradesh: BJP adapts, SP eyes new coalitions

For the past few months, BJP workers across Uttar Pradesh have been attending 36-hour training camps. They stay on campus, share meals, attend yoga sessions and sit through classes on ideology, booth management, voter outreach, social media and media engagement. In many cases, they are asked to leave their phones outside.

The programme, called the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Prashikshan Maha Abhiyan, is active in other states as well. However, it is particularly significant in Uttar Pradesh, where assembly elections are due in February-March, 2027.

The registrations were done online, attendance was digitally recorded and the programme was coordinated from the district level down to the mandals.

“I believe no political party in India has conducted a campaign of this scale before,” said a senior BJP leader from the state.

The focus on Uttar Pradesh is hardly surprising. It sends 80 members to Parliament and has been a BJP bastion. However, in the Lok Sabha elections two years ago, the party’s tally was nearly halved to 33, and there was an embarrassing loss in Faizabad, which includes Ayodhya.

The opposition’s strategy was built on a simple abbreviation: PDA, or pichhda (backward), dalit and alpsankhyak (minorities). Akhilesh Yadav wanted to move the Samajwadi Party beyond its traditional Muslim-Yadav base, and they focused heavily on non-Yadav OBCs and dalits, communities that had backed the BJP in the previous decade. In 2024, the Samajwadi Party fielded only five Yadavs, all from Mulayam Singh’s family. Most of the rest came from communities such as Kurmis, Mauryas, Rajbhars and Pasis.

Though OBCs make up roughly 40 to 45 per cent of the state’s population, they do not vote as a bloc. They are made up of dozens of communities with distinct political interests who often vote based on local leadership, representation and political opportunity rather than broader ideology.

The BJP’s success between 2014 and 2022 rested on wooing these communities through welfare schemes, symbolic representation and alliances with smaller, caste-based parties. PDA was designed to break that coalition, and it succeeded with the INDIA bloc winning 43 of the 80 seats in 2024.

“The BJP assessed the losses and modified its strategy,” said BJP spokesperson Sanjay Chaudhary. “The party worked to broaden its outreach across all sections of society and was able to convert those efforts into improved electoral results.” The NDA won eight of 10 assembly byelections held after the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

One of the most recent and visible corrections has been the change in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet: six new ministers were inducted last month, with three from OBC communities, two from the scheduled castes and a Brahmin who crossed over from the Samajwadi Party. Two of them were from western Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP’s performance dipped in 2024.

The party also appointed Pankaj Chaudhary, Union minister of state for finance, as its state president last December. He is a Kurmi, the second-largest OBC community in the state after the Yadavs. Following the 2022 elections, the caste group most represented in the assembly was Brahmin (52 members), followed by Thakur (49) and Kurmi (41). Adityanath is a Thakur.

The challenge for Adityanath is clear. He must retain the BJP’s social alliance while bringing back the communities that drifted away in 2024.

In his nine years as chief minister, Adityanath has built the image of a strongman, largely because of bulldozer action and efforts to rein in the mafia.

Supporters highlight better law and order, improved infrastructure, welfare delivery and investment commitments.

Critics, however, argue that unemployment, agrarian distress and social tensions remain serious issues. The opposition has focused on lack of jobs, particularly among young OBC and dalit voters. It has also raised concerns over inflation, paper leaks and lack of economic opportunities.

“The Samajwadi Party has stood with backward communities, dalits, women, youth, the poor and farmers,” said party spokesperson Ghanshyam Tiwari. “We will continue to stand with them and continue to oppose the injustices of the Adityanath government.”

The PDA formula might appear formidable on paper, but sustaining it into 2027 will require careful candidate selection and the right messaging.

“Unlike other states, where regional parties are on the decline, Akhilesh continues to have a strong grip on his party. Supporters and voters still see him as a prospective chief minister, and that has helped the party steadily expand its support base,” said Prof Shashikant Pandey of the department of political science, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow. “Akhilesh has worked to accommodate dalit groups within the party structure and candidates list. This has helped him attract a substantial number of dalit voters. The PDA strategy is essentially a continuation of a process that began earlier, particularly through efforts to move beyond the traditional Muslim-Yadav formula.”

Helping the Samajwadi Party would be the Congress, which has also tried to deepen engagement with dalits and Muslims. Its minority cell chief Imran Pratapgarhi recently organised a dalit-minority conclave in the state.

The Congress’s challenge remains organisational weakness. Outside a few pockets, it lacks the structure that once made it dominant in the state.

Notably, an initiative by two Congress leaders to reach out to Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati came to nought after she refused to meet them. The party was quick to distance itself from what it called an “individual initiative”.

The BSP’s position in the current political landscape is interesting. In the past three assembly elections, its vote share has gone from 25.9 per cent to 22.2 per cent to 12.9 per cent. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, it did not win a single seat. Non-Jatav dalits moved to the BJP, Muslims went to the Samajwadi Party and Brahmins returned to the BJP.

Mayawati has declared that she will contest alone in 2027. She is attempting to revive Brahmin outreach and has reconstituted her Muslim Samaj Bhaichara Sangathan for minority contact—a strategy echoing her 2007 victory.

Her ability to keep even 8 to 10 per cent of the vote can influence outcomes in many seats. In 2022, of 403 assembly constituencies, 114 were decided by a margin of under 10,000 votes. The BJP won 63 of these; the Samajwadi Party, 41. In 15 seats, the margin was under 1,000 votes; in 10, it was under 500.

“The BJP’s biggest strength is Adityanath’s leadership,” said Pandey. “He has developed a strong personal appeal. Uttar Pradesh is one of the few states where votes can be mobilised not only in Modi’s name, but also in Adityanath’s name.”

Another strength for the party, he said citing research, was that rural women voters participated in unusually high numbers in the 2022 assembly elections, and a majority of them voted saffron.

The BJP would also draw confidence from recent wins in Assam and West Bengal. “It sent a clear message that caste, which was traditionally a dominant electoral issue, appears to be losing some of its influence,” argued Chaudhary. “People are increasingly moving beyond caste identities and aligning themselves with development-oriented politics and the BJP.”

The Bengal result threw up another lesson. Trinamool Congress president Mamata Banerjee had relied on the state’s 26 per cent Muslim population to keep her hold on power. But experts say the vote splintered. Uttar Pradesh has around 18 per cent Muslims, and the position of Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen could divide the minority vote.

As the next round of elections draws closer, the Uttar Pradesh battle will dominate all others and might even set the tone for the 2029 Lok Sabha polls.

“Akhilesh has been expanding his support base for years, while Yogi and the BJP continue to rely on an organisational machine that remains unmatched,” said Pandey. “A lot will depend on how both distribute tickets.”