LUCKNOW: With the 2027 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections a few months away, the main Opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) has stepped up to build its own caste-wise voter database, with booth-level workers verifying electoral rolls and mapping communities across assembly segments.
The exercise aims at giving the party a clearer perspective of caste equations even before the Centre’s proposed caste Census and help shape candidate selection, electoral strategy and seat-sharing propositions with the allies.
As per the party sources, the exercise would help the party identify local issues, define its strategic course and take informed decisions on various aspects of electoral strategy.
According to a senior SP leader, the exercise was already underway and involved collecting real-time ground-level voter data based on multiple parameters.
The party sources claimed that booth-level assistants of the party were enlisting various castes and communities and sending them to district presidents for compilation and to forward them to state presidents.
All the data would be compiled at the state level and then be handed over to the national president Akhilesh Yadav.
The party had earlier sought lists of community-wise leaders from across the State and directed them to reach out to people from their respective communities, and such an exercise was on for the two years.
"We are not the only ones doing it; other parties have also done similar exercises from time to time," said a party leader.
The internal drive relies on the SP’s existing network of workers and local units, besides data gathered by some external agencies.
Caste equations have long remained a key factor in Uttar Pradesh elections, with political parties conducting internal assessments to plan their outreach and candidate selection. The SP’s exercise comes ahead of the expected availability of official caste Census data.
