In Uttar Pradesh, it's Akhilesh Yadav vs Narendra Modi

The ongoing Assembly election in Uttar Pradesh is defying all the set formulae that have worked in the past – Jat-Muslim, Dalit-Muslim, Hindu-Muslim – and yielded rich electoral dividends for different parties. It is instead turning out to be an Akhilesh versus Modi election. ”We want Akhilesh in Lucknow and Modi in Delhi” is a view expressed by many a voter.

Not J-M (Jat-Muslim)

Elections have already been held in 140 seats in western Uttar Pradesh in two rounds on February 11, and February 15. The “J-M”(Jat-Muslim) combination used to work here when Chaudhary Charan Singh was alive. It worked for Ajit Singh, when he was in the Janata Dal. This time round, Ajit Singh is more likely to be a spoiler, with only a chunk of the Jat – not Muslim – component going back to him. Unlike 2014, when Jats had gravitated to the Bharatiya Janata Party, and created, in the words of Amit Shah, a wave for Narendra Modi starting from the west and blowing towards the east, this time the Jats are deserting the BJP for Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal.

It is not so much their demand for reservation in jobs or for the arrears that are due to them by sugar mills that is agitating them. Essentially, they feel they have not got their due in the BJP. Nor do they enjoy the clout they had wielded in the past. They also feel a sense of guilt for defeating Ajit Singh – and his son Jayant Chaudhary – in 2014 (“We overdid it”). They have chafed against what they thought was “humiliating” treatment meted out to Ajit Singh when he was thrown out of his Tughlaq Road residence, earlier home to his father Charan Singh and mother when she was member of Parliament. This was also “home” to Jats whenever they came to Delhi.

Given the persisting Jat-Muslim tensions, following Muzaffarnagar riots in 2013, the Muslims are not yet looking at the RLD. The BJP had insisted on the RLD’s merger in the saffron party, and the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance was not willing to accommodate Ajit Singh in the alliance lest it antagonise the Muslims. But then, Ajit Singh is playing for 2019, Jats are quick to point out, when he will be able to show other parties, which ignored him this time, that he is worth wooing. Even this time, if there is a hung assembly, by that off chance, they feel, he may well emerge as the king – or queen – maker. His singular contribution in 2017 seems to be “to puncture the BJP balloon” in the western districts. Small wonder then that Amit Shah pleaded with Jat leaders, just before the elections got underway, to rethink and return to the BJP. The Jats leaving the BJP’s side is advantage SP-Congress Alliance.

Not D-M (Dalit-Muslim)

Theoretically speaking, the “D-M”(Dalit-Muslim) combine should enable Mayawati to sweep in most of the 140 seats of western Uttar Pradesh, given the demography of the area, which is Dalit, Muslim and Jat dominated. But that is not the way things have panned out in successive elections.

Even in 2007, when she came to power on her own, only 20 % of Muslims had voted for the Bahujan Samaj Party, and that was the highest Mayawati has ever got. It was the rainbow coalition she crafted with Brahmins and the non-Yadav, backward castes (popularly categorised as MBCs – most backward castes or “ati pichda varg”) that helped her to romp home. The Muslims vote for her tactically in seats where only she is in a position to defeat the BJP, but they have not been able to overcome their wariness of her because of her past tie-ups with the BJP and the suspicion that she will do so again, were the situation to warrant it.

The “D-M”(Dalit-Muslim) combination seemed to be working in western districts this time only where Mayawati has fielded a strong Muslim candidate and the SP-Congress alliance candidate is a washout. Otherwise the Muslims’ clear – and in places overwhelming – preference remains the Samajwadi Party and the alliance. The Samajwadi Party has always been the preferred choice of the Muslims since the early 1990s, having polled 47% of the Muslim vote even in 2007 when the party was routed, and surprisingly a little less in 2012 when the party won a majority, but that was because the Congress party took away as much as 18% of the Muslim vote in that election.

In 2017, Muslims said they would have voted “for Akhilesh” even without a tie-up with the Congress, but the Congress has added value because the Muslims see in the alliance the kernel of an alternative to Modi in 2019. If one goes by the frenzied response of Muslims (as in Meerut) to Akhilesh Yadav, it is not inconceivable that the Samajwadi Party surpasses all its earlier figures of Muslim support, its highest being 70% in the 1998 Lok Sabha polls.

Not H-M (Hindu-Muslim)

The “H-M”(Hindu-Muslim) formula, polarised the Hindus – and this included the Dalits – behind the BJP in 2014 and enabled it to sweep western Uttar Pradesh, and the party had led in as many as 68 out of the 73 assembly segments which went to the polls on February 11. But the Hindu-Muslim factor did not seem to be working this time round, certainly not in the first phase. In fact several Jats remarked they had been “used” by the BJP in 2014 so as “to divide and rule”.

However, the murder of a 17 year old Jat in Bijnore on February 10, curiously five days before polling, as alleged retaliation for the killing of three Muslims five months earlier, showed signs of polarizing the situation on “H-M” lines again, with Jats claiming that they were going to move back to the BJP fold in the district. The extent of its ripple effect, in districts around Bijnore, however, was not clear.

Election 2017 appears different from earlier polls. In the absence of wave-like conditions, which prevailed in 2014, it is a hark back to old caste loyalties, which still exercise a strong pull with the voter. At another level, the traditional affinities are cracking, mostly on old-young lines.

A Yadav youth in Bijnore said his parents could vote for the old caste loyalties but he would vote for “development”. Several young Jats talked of voting BJP, even as 80% of their elders seemed to be going back to the RLD. The youth among the Bania community, were rooting for Akhilesh Yadav, and were helping to organize his meetings, while the older traders were more circumspect in their response, as I found, moving around several western districts, talking to people at random, to get a sense of which way the wind was blowing.

It’s A-M: Akhilesh vs Modi

This is not a “J-M’”, a “D”-M”, or an “H-M” poll. UP 2017 appears to be an “A-M”( Akhilesh versus Modi) election.

What is going for Akhilesh is solid support of “M-Y”(Muslim-Yadav) combine, the traditional mainstay of the SP, and a “plus” factor. He enjoys a cross cutting appeal, with “larke ne kaam to kiya hai,” being a frequently heard remark, made even by BJP supporters.

What is going for the BJP is Modi’s image, which has not dimmed. He continues to have the support of the most backward castes and non-Jatav Dalits , given the pro-poor image he is acquiring, and their hinduisation over the years since the Ram-janambhumi movement. Even if their support wanes somewhat – 60% of the non-Yadav and non-Kurmi Other Backward Classes had voted for Modi in 2014 – they still are large enough in numbers.

What might go against Modi, however, is that they are fragmented in many groups and are not in the driver’s seat in a constituency, like the Jats or the Brahmins or even the Banias would have been, able to create a certain “mahaul” or mood in the party’s favour.

There is an erosion in the Brahmin support for the saffron party, with the Brahmins looking at the Congress where the party has fielded candidates from the community. The Banias, dependent on cash transactions for their trade, are angry about demonetisation and feel betrayed by the party they have supported all along. The young amongst them say, “We have to teach the BJP a lesson at least once”. But what is really compounding the BJP’s problems this time is the lack of enthusiasm amongst communities that comprised its core support base (Brahmin, Bania, Jat) and in its own rank and file.