Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and SP supremo Akhilesh Yadav
Voting for nine assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh will be held on November 20. In this case, there are only four days left in the campaign. From SP to BJP and BSP, they have put the chessboard of caste equation on the Election Commission. To unite the fragmented Hindu vote in the Lok Sabha elections, CM Yogi set the narrative of “if you divide, you divide” and then Akhilesh Yadav laid the foundation for winning the by-elections with his successful PDA formula. The “if you join, you win” bet.
Both the SP and the BJP political parties are paying special attention to the OBC. Given the political mood in the seat, both parties have fielded their candidates. The by-elections were then completely complicated by caste divisions, with caste forces siding with the BJP in one seat and with the Samajwadi Party in another. A similar scenario can be seen from Ghaziabad to Majhivan Assembly seats, with a straight fight between the Samajwadi Party and the BJP, but in some seats, the BJP has gone out of its way.
caste council by-election
The SP also adopted the same strategy and used the caste formula to win the by-elections, Akhilesh Yadav won 37 seats in the Lok Sabha elections, in which 25 MPs from backward castes were elected. Of the nine SP candidates, four are Muslims, three are OBC and two are from the Dalit community. SP bets on Yadav, Nishad and Kurmi communities in OBC. Not fielding candidates from the upper caste groups is a clear indication that the SP’s strategy is to win the by-elections through the PDA formula. The SP has offered tickets to Muslim-dominated parliamentary seats but its strategy is to repeat the victory by fielding candidates from Yadav, Kurmi and Nishad communities.
The BJP has moved to counter the Socialist Party’s successful model. In the eight seats under its quota, the BJP has fielded candidates from four OBCs, three from the upper castes and one from the Dalit community. The BJP has fielded candidates from Yadav, Kurmi, Maurya and Nishad communities in OBC. The RLD party, led by BJP ally Jayant Choudhary, is contesting from the Meerapur seat and has fielded a candidate from an extremely backward caste from the Palli community. Similarly, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has fielded one Dalit candidate, two Muslim candidates, four upper caste candidates and two OBC candidates.
The danger of OBC vote fragmentation
As non-Yadav OBC votes fell in the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP suffered a crushing defeat in the UP, while the Samajwadi Party gained an advantage. This is a huge blow to the BJP. Through the PDA formula, the SP succeeded in gaining access to the huge vote bank of the OBC. Especially the Kurmi, Maurya and Nishad communities. Apart from this, Dalit votes also prioritize the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance over the Janata Dal and the Janata Dal.
CM Yogi Adityanath has tried to promote caste harmony with the help of his campaign style and repeats the same saying in every rally, “If you divide, you will divide”. In this way, the BJP pinned its hopes of victory in the by-elections on its mission of Hindu unity. Barring CM Yogi, all other leaders are down to earth and busy unifying the equation and society and not allowing them to divide. Meanwhile, the SP is trying its best to retain OBC votes in the Lok Sabha elections, for which Akhilesh Yadav repeated the same words at the rally, “If you join, you will win”. Through this event, OBC castes are called upon to remain united.
Interesting battle for OBC votes
The by-election battle is getting very interesting and the election doesn’t seem to be going according to pattern. Each seat has its own political ethos and caste equation. In the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP took a gamble by spreading OBC votes across castes, which were all in favor of the SP, so a caste that aligned with one party on one seat would win in another One seat saw a caste siding with another party. seat. In Kethari constituency, Kurmi voters sided with the Samajwadi Party while Nishad voters sided with the BJP. Similarly, in Majhwan seat, Maurya Samaj is with the BJP while Nishad Samaj is with the SP.
A Kurmi voter stood with the Samajwadi Party in Kattari constituency and he stood with the BJP candidate Deepak Patel in Phulpur. The reason is that the BJP has fielded a candidate from the Kurmi community. SP has provided tickets to Nishad in Majhwan and Kurmi in Katehari. The caste issue is further complicated by the fact that the BJP has fielded a candidate from the Mauryan caste in Majhivan and one from the Nishad caste in Kethari. The BJP has taken this step based on a well-thought-out strategy. There should be no alliances between OBC castes.
In Meerapur constituency, RLD has fielded Mithlesh Pal from Pal community, while all opposition parties, including SP, have bet on Muslims. Political tensions in the RLD increased as votes were given to the Pal community despite Gurjar-Jat majority. Though Ghaziabad is a general seat, the Samajwadi Party fielded a Dalit candidate and the BJP bet on the Brahmins, but the BJP bet on the Vaishya community, thus changing the caste math Got to be completely complicated.
In the Kajal seat, both the Samajwadi Party and the BJP fielded candidates from the Yadav community, but the BJP disrupted the political landscape by betting on a candidate from the Shakya community. With the votes of Pal, Shakya and Kashyap, the BJP’s hold on the seat is likely to be weakened. While the Kundaki seat is held by BJP’s Ramveer Singh, all opposition parties, including the Samajwadi Party and the BJP, have expressed confidence in Muslims. Again, this seat is reserved for Dalits and hence all political parties fielded Dalit candidates.
