Wave to wavering: UP elections will not be a cakewalk for BJP

In Uttar Pradesh politics, predicting an electoral winner is difficult and foolhardy in equal measure. This is a state that has not given any chief minister a second chance at a full five-year term. It has an electorate that has long debunked the prophecy that whoever rules it will get a shot at forming the Union government (remember Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav). It is also a state that routinely mocks political predictions.

The 2022 assembly polls are no different.

Yogi Adityanath, who initiated his career opposing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in his hometown of Gorakhpur, was a surprise pick for the state’s top post. But he quickly proved to be a tough ruler, unabashed about his beliefs. Thus, he has unapologetically refused to wear skull caps, has been a loud votary of Hindu pride and talks in the only language that criminals understand. Of the last, his ‘thok do (shoot them)’ remark is perhaps as well-known as it is criticised.

Under him, the state has initiated legislation that other states have emulated (like the law on illegal religious conversion), aggressively invited investment and taken on a bureaucracy that has always lumbered to its own diktats.

The BJP is banking on hindutva pride and development to win this election. Unlike the last Lok Sabha election, nationalism is not an issue, at least not as yet. Sidharth Nath Singh, the state’s cabinet minister for micro, small and medium enterprises, investment and export, said that there were “two parallelly strong aspects” that would benefit the BJP. “The first is the manner in which law and order has improved and people can go about their daily lives and businesses. The second is the all-round development that is visible in the state,” he said.

Giving an example from his constituency (Allahabad West), Singh cited the case of Atique Ahmed who won a record five terms to the Vidhan Sabha. He is currently lodged in Sabarmati Jail, Gujarat, and the Enforcement Directorate has attached assets worth more than Rs8 crore. His many charges include kidnapping and money laundering. Acts such as these— including the ferrying of another criminal legislator Mukhtar Ansari from a jail in Punjab back to the state—were unimaginable in previous regimes in which both were lauded as ‘mananiye (honourable)’. Ahmed has been a member of the Samajwadi Party and Ansari of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) at different times in their long political careers.

On the link between development and employment, Singh said that it was a nuanced relationship that had to be understood vis-à-vis the manner in which the Planning Commission calculated employment figures. For example, in the case of those who are self-employed/employed in family businesses, such calculations rely on self-assessments. “Even if a person gets a Rs10 lakh loan and sets up a sweet shop that employs not just his family members but also creates jobs for others, he will still harbour the desire for a ‘government job’,” said Singh.

By that, he means that it is these elusive government jobs—teachers, police personnel, health workers—that have created the impression that unemployment is rampant in the state and its youth angry.

Development, too, can hold different meaning for different people. The coming up of airports and expressways, for instance, while not generating immediate jobs are definite parameters of progress for many. And in these projects, Uttar Pradesh has seen an unprecedented uptick.

Anupriya Patel, national president of the Apna Dal (Sonelal), a key ally of the BJP, said that a successful implementation of Central government schemes had been made possible only because of the state government’s efficiency. That is the “double engine of growth” that has been a staple of the BJP election campaign.

“The prime minister’s idea of creating export hubs was merged with the state’s One District, One Product scheme,” said Patel, Union minister of state for commerce and industry. “Through value addition, capacity building and making products export competitive, there is steady employment generation. People from the state will no longer need to move out.”

Coming from Patel, this can only be counted as a genuine compliment, for she has specifically said that issues of hindutva (so dear to Adityanath) are not her party’s issues and that Muslims are not untouchables.

Awanish Kumar Singh, BJP MLC (Lucknow graduate constituency), said that the government’s biggest achievement had been that it had remedied a moribund public distribution system (PDS). The introduction of biometrics meant that the human element of choice or rejection by PDS shop owners had been buried.

A June 2018 paper in the Indian Journal of Human Element noted, “The public distribution system in Uttar Pradesh… was widely recognised as dysfunctional.... Main findings show that the accessibility to PDS rationing is higher among lower socioeconomic groups and regions, which also have a higher share of PDS commodities in their food consumption and calorie intake in comparison to the non-poor categories. PDS has also made a positive and significant contribution towards ensuring food security among poor families.”

Poor Muslims, dalits and the most backward castes, which critics of this government say are the most neglected, thus benefit most from this revamped system that makes discrimination impossible. Thus, within villages, the overriding sentiment is that everyone has got something—a house, a toilet or free rations. And the possibility that those who have not will soon be eligible is a plus for the BJP.

The Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, initiated during the pandemic, will continue till March 2022, when the seven-phased elections will conclude. This, too, will positively influence voters.

On the possible repercussions of Covid mismanagement in the state, Awanish said, “There was a very brief period of problem (in managing Covid). People understood that the pandemic had caused a collapse of health systems in advanced countries like the US. After that brief period of trouble, the government stood with the people and that is what they remember.”

Analysts, however, do not believe that all is smooth sailing for the BJP. There is anti-incumbency and the opposition is putting up a fight, building alliances. But there are specific issues that irk the electorate.

For example, one big issue in rural Uttar Pradesh has been that of stray animals. Myth and religion collude to give the cow an exalted place in Hinduism. The state’s first act for protection of cows was passed in 1955; stricter provisions were added to it in June 2020. This included charging even owners of vehicles used to illegally ferry cows for slaughter and making them pay for maintenance of seized animals. Adityanath had said that only hailing the cow as divine would do nothing to protect her. And thus the need for harsh provisions, which also prescribed punishments for those who endangered the animal by not providing adequate food and water.

According to the government’s data, there are over 5,000 cow protection centres in the state that cater to the well-being of over five lakh cattle. But there are many catches to this claim. One, there is just a provision of Rs30 per animal housed in a shelter. Experts said that this amount should at least be double to meet the nutritional needs of cows. Two, the food for the strays in these shelters was to come from common grazing lands in villages. But in most villages this land has been leased out for private use. Thus, there are no grazing areas for the cows, causing them to wander into people’s fields and destroy standing crops.

Munna Lal Shukla, a Right to Information activist, is a Socialist Party of India candidate from Sandila, Hardoi district. He has been leading a movement to get stray animals to shelters so that they cause no harm to crops and humans. Since December 2020, he had led about 1,000 cows to shelters. But in January 2021, the police booked him for disturbing peace and he also got into skirmishes with BJP leaders. “They made use of the cow only as an issue, but did not know what to do about it,” said Shukla. “The blame has now come to rest on common folk for letting their animals go once they no longer produce milk.”

So while no one, including politicians, will dare openly say that stray cows have become a nuisance, there is anger against what has happened. Moreover, there is anger in communities that were engaged in leather trade but lost their livelihoods owing to the cap on cow slaughter.

It is telling that the BJP manifesto has nothing on cow protection, despite the political mileage it got from the issue. It is only the Congress that has given some thought to it, for instance, promising Rs3,000 per acre for farmers whose crops have been destroyed by animals.

Ramesh Dixit, retired head of department of political science at Lucknow University, said that the opposition—more specifically Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav—would benefit by a huge personal resentment against Adityanath. “The way he (Adityanath) talks—‘we will run bulldozers after March 10, we will take the heat out of the UP boys (Yadav and his alliance partner Jayant Chaudhary)’—will be unacceptable to the electorate,” he said. “Politics does not mean revenge, hooliganism and an open threat to Muslims, dalits and backwards. People want a civilised society back.”

Yadav’s cause will be helped by the multiple alliances he has built with small caste-based outfits, like (the almost unheard of) Gondwana Gantantra Party and the (slightly better known) Mahan Dal.

Badri Narayan, director of the G.B. Pant Social Science Institute, Prayagraj, said, “The Samajwadi strategy is to stitch together these small parties to make a big difference. Individually they might attract few votes, but in a closely fought election, these votes will make all the difference”.

These small outfits are also buoyed by the fact that there is a greater chance of fulfilling their political aspirations within the Samajwadi Party than the BJP. The large size of the BJP and the fact that its strategy is to make direct inroads into communities rather than rely on leaders it has attracted (for example, Swami Prasad Maurya, an OBC leader of great stature who came in from the BSP in the 2017 Vidhan Sabha elections) defeats the aspirations of these outfits. Conversely, if the party accommodates their aspirations, it risks alienating its own cadre and homegrown leaders.

While public perception is that this election is a two-cornered contest, the BSP is not out of reckoning. Mayawati made her first election appearance in Agra on February 3 and answered her critics by announcing that she had been working. Quiet on ground work is the manner of the BSP and its core Jatav voter is unlikely to desert it.

Dharamveer Chaudhary, BSP spokesperson, said, “We lost 88 seats by just a 2,000 vote margin in 2017. All those seats are coming to us in this election.” Poll data, however, shows that overall less than 20 seats had a defeat margin of 2,000 votes or less. Despite agitation not being the natural BSP style of politics, even its biggest supporters believe that the party has been uncharacteristically quiet in this election.

Meanwhile, the Congress is also adding to the din of elections. The ‘Ladki Hoon, Lad Sakti Hoon (I am a girl, I can fight)’ campaign has incited curiosity. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s personal charisma is also at work. Though these are unlikely to translate into wins, the party will attract votes, most likely eating into the secular votes that the Samajwadi Party is banking on.

But all these speculations might add to naught when the election results start to roll in on March 10. That is the enduring charm of Uttar Pradesh’s unpredictable electorate.