Uttar Pradesh Elections 2022: BJP’s new social engineering to be tested in phase-V

Will the BJP's new social engineering be put to the test during the fifth phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections?

Sirathu, an assembly constituency in Uttar Pradesh's Kaushambi district, is one of the keenly watched seats in phase-V of the assembly polls. It is one of those seats where you have to have support from non-Yadav other backward classes (OBCs) and non-Jatav Dalits to win elections.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won this seat in the 2012 and 2017 assembly elections and has fielded Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya this time.

Thanks partly to an alliance with parties like the Apna Dal, the Nishad Party, and OP Rajbhar’s Suheldev Rajbhar Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) at different points of time, the BJP has been getting a sizeable chunk of non-Yadav OBC and non-Jatav Dalit votes in the last few elections.

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The BJP was estimated to have received less than 20 per cent non-Yadav OBC votes in the 2012 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, according to Lokniti-CSDS survey data. It jumped closer to 60 per cent in 2017. In fact, in the last three elections in Uttar Pradesh — two Lok Sabha and one assembly — non-Yadav OBCs have solidly backed the BJP, survey data shows.

Thanks to the newly stitched social alliance, the BJP made handsome gains in the region in the last assembly elections. From a modest vote share of just 13 per cent and five assembly seats in 2012, the BJP’s vote share climbed to 37 per cent in 2017. The Samajwadi Party’s seat tally, on the other hand, dropped from an impressive 41 to just five in this period. The performance of the BSP and the Congress has been quite lacklustre in all these seats in all elections since 2012.

Will the BJP’s momentum continue in 2022? What has changed this time is that Apna Dal has split into two, the SBSP is part of the Samajwadi Party alliance and many other smaller parties representing the aspirations of one or more OBC groups are opposed to the BJP.