Akshat Rajan

EJ 7

Uttar Pradesh boasts a diverse electorate comprising various demographic groups.

Data from census records and voter registration statistics reveal the state's
demographic composition, including caste, religion, age, and gender distributions.
Caste-based politics traditionally play a significant role in UP elections, with parties
often aligning their strategies to appeal to specific caste groups.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has made history by winning a consecutive election in
Uttar Pradesh at the end of a five-year term, something that only Sampurnanand,
the state’s second chief minister, succeeded to do in 1957.

The BJP’s victory is all the more impressive as it also increased its vote share,
from 39.7% to 41.3%. The relative decline of seats – 255 against 312 in 2017 –
comes from the fact that the Samajwadi Party did well in a bipolar election. When
a multipolar party system becomes more bipolar, the votes of parties on the decline
usually get distributed between the two ascending parties, lifting both boats.

The Samajwadi Party scored its highest vote share ever (32%) but could not
convert the votes into as many seats as it had hoped. The SP failed to break the
social coalitions that have enabled the BJP to now win four consecutive elections
in Uttar Pradesh.

The two losers of this election are the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress. The
BSP collapsed at 12.9% of total vote share, its worst performance since 1993,
when it was still a nascent party. The decline of the BSP in recent elections has
been nothing short of spectacular. Its loss of vote share has been gradual since it
peaked in 2007 but greatly accelerated this year.

The consequences in terms of seats are disastrous. In 2007, the BSP obtained a
single majority of seats with 30% of the votes. It is now reduced to a single seat,
despite having received 12.9% of the votes.

The Congress has been reduced to dust and can now officially be declared
clinically dead in Uttar Pradesh. As political scientist Rahul Verma observed, the
Congress usually never comes back in the states where it disappears.

A comparison of parties’ performance over the last three elections shows that the
BJP has been losing assembly segments, despite increasing its vote share. This has
to do with the configuration of the competition. In 2019, the SP-BSP alliance
underperformed in terms of seats but did reasonably well in terms of votes. They
only won 15 Lok Sabha seats but were ahead in 105 assembly segments, not far
from the 111 seats that the SP won in 2022.

The last two elections have been more bipolar than in the recent past, first between
an alliance and the BJP, and this time between the SP and the BJP. This explains
why the BJP has been losing seats while gaining votes.

The trajectories of parties’ vote share since 1993 indicate the magnitude of
transformation of the state’s politics. The BJP has crossed the 40% bar in a state
election for the first time of its history. It is hard to remember that before 2017, the
BJP was, in fact, on the decline. Few parties have succeeded to gain as many votes
in such a short period of time as the BJP has done.

The Samajwadi Party too made its best performance, at 32%. Ten years ago, it
would have obtained a comfortable majority in the assembly with such a vote
share. But the days of low vote share single majorities are for the time being over,
with the BJP having raised the winning threshold in Uttar Pradesh drastically.

By virtue of alliances, the BJP and the SP did not contest every seat – the BJP
contested 376 out of 403 and SP contested 347. Vote share in seats contested is a
better measure of a party’s performance, even though one must assume that their
partners did contribute in some way to boost their performance. BJP vote share
thus increases to 44.2%, against 37.3% for SP.

The first-past-the-post system continues, as always, to produce a disproportionate

allocation of seats. The BJP seat share went from 77.4% to 63.3%, while SP’s seat
share increased from 11.7% to 27.5% in 2022. Both the BSP and the Congress
have been completely laminated, reduced to one and two seats, respectively.

First, these results are indicative not only of the bipolarisation of the party system,
but of the deep polarisation that divides Uttar Pradesh society. The Samajwadi
Party performed best in areas that contain the largest share of its core support base
– Yadavs in Lower Doab, Muslims in Rohilkhand.

Eastern Uttar Pradesh offers a more complex setting which requires more
investigation. But the outcome in Western Uttar Pradesh was also geographically
specific, and marked by caste-based and communal polarisation. The consolidation
of the Muslim vote behind the SP is an indicator of deepening polarisation too.

Second, the features of BJP’s performance indicate a consolidation of its previous

victories. It is a major feat for any party to not lose ground, particularly in a state
particularly affected by mass poverty, economic distress, unemployment and a
general lack of future prospects for its enormous youth population.