LUCKNOW: Assembly polls in the country’s most politically significant state are approaching. Parties of all hues are trying to make their presence felt in pockets of strategic significance. A glance through election data from previous years reveals a trend. The reserved seats — 86 of 403 this time — more or less determine who forms the government in Uttar Pradesh.
If the performance of the political players in Assembly elections since 2002 is analysed, it emerges that whoever came to power won at least 60% of these seats reserved for Scheduled Castes (84) and Scheduled Tribes (2). No wonder that they are again doing their best to strike the appropriate caste balance in those seats.
While BJP has added the non-Jatav Scheduled Caste voters to its bank and reaped benefits in the 2014, 2019 Lok Sabha elections and 2017 Assembly elections, Samajwadi Party seems to have had a rethink after a crushing defeat in 2017. Known as a party reliant on ‘M-Y’ (Muslim-Yadav) to win elections, the Samajwadis have struck alliances with a number of small caste groups to throw a more robust challenge at the ruling saffron party.
Bahujan Samaj Party, on the other hand, is banking on the support of Jatav voters and trying to revive its old social engineering formula of combining ‘SC-Muslim-Brahmin-Jat’ voters to return to power. But it’s an uphill task, considering that BSP at the moment does not enjoy the backing of prominent leaders from these castes. “The BSP thinks if any one of these caste groups offers full support, it will sail through,” says professor SK Dwivedi, prominent political scientist.
The SC equation is crucial because of their significant presence in the population of UP. “Scheduled Castes form a considerable chunk of the population, about 21%. They have the numbers to make or mar the fortune of political parties who are always engaged in a fight to win this vote bank,” says professor AK Mishra, another noted political scientist.
In 2002, BJP and BSP had come together to form the government but failed to meet the challenges of alliance and fell apart in 2003. SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav rushed in to fill the gap and took over as CM to run the government till 2007. In 2002, there were 89 reserved seats, of which BJP won 35 and BSP 24. Between them, they had 59 which was about 66% of the total reserved seats. In 2007, the number of reserved seats remained the same as BSP won 61 and formed the government. The script remained the same in 2012 and 2017.
For the 2017 elections, two seats were reserved for Scheduled Tribes for the first time following a Supreme Court order. Both seats were in Sonebhadra, the only tribal district of the state. Riding a strong Modi wave, BJP succeeded in 70 of the 86 reserved seats — 69 SC and one ST — thus accounting for 81.3% of the reserved seats.
Significantly, in 2017, BJP allies Apna Dal and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) won three reserved seats each. SP won just seven, BSP two and Nirdaliya one. While Apna Dal won two SC and one ST seats, SBSP was victorious in three SC seats. So effectively, the BJP-led NDA was in power in 76 of the 86 reserved seats — 88%.“Results of the previous four Assembly elections prove that the party that wins more than 65% of the reserved seats forms the government in Uttar Pradesh,” added Mishra.