CM Yogi, Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati
Voting for nine assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh will be held on November 20. The UP by-elections are considered as the semi-finals of 2027 and the Janata Party, Samajwadi Party and Janata Party are pouring all their efforts into it. In the by-elections held after the Lok Sabha elections, the biggest bet is on the OBC community. Like the Lok Sabha, the Samajwadi Party is also contesting the by-elections based on the PDA (Backward, Dalit, Minority) formula, while the BJP has created a conspiracy by betting on the OBC to counter Akhilesh Yadav’s strategy. In this case, it is clear that the real fight in the by-election is the OBC vote, the outcome of which will determine the future state and direction of state politics?
Among the nine seats in UP where by-elections are going to be held, there are Meerapur, Kundarki, Ghaziabad, Khair, Karhal, Katehari, Sisamau, Phulpur and Majhwan seats. The SP has fielded candidates in all nine seats, while the BJP itself is contesting on eight seats and its ally RLD is trying its luck on one seat. The BSP has also taken steps in the by-election this time. If we look at the 2022 election results, Socialist Party MLAs occupied 4 seats and BJP MLAs occupied 3 seats. RLD and Nishad party have one MLA each.
The equation between BJP and SP in by-elections
The SP won 37 seats in the Lok Sabha elections, in which 25 MPs from backward castes were elected. Of the nine Samajwadi Party candidates contesting in the by-elections, four are Muslims, three are OBC and two are from the Dalit community. SP bets on Yadav, Nishad and Kurmi communities in OBC. At the same time, seeing the success of SP’s PDA formula, the BJP is also betting on OBC candidates this time.
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 the OBC community. If we look at the caste equation of BSP candidates, it fielded one Dalit candidate, two Muslim candidates, four upper caste candidates and two OBC candidates. The BJP has fielded an OBC candidate from Kurmi and Shakya communities. The RLD, an ally of the BJP, has fielded a candidate in Meerapur who belongs to the Pal community of the OBC.
What happens to the SP’s PDA chemistry?
The SP fielded four Muslim, three Obasi and two Dalit candidates in the by-elections. Akhilesh Yadav did not field any candidate from the upper caste community, a clear indication that SP’s strategy is to win the by-elections through the PDA formula. The SP did give tickets to Muslims in Muslim-dominated parliamentary seats, but by fielding candidates from Yadav, Kurmi and Nishad communities, it used new social engineering to determine the terms and direction of future politics.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the SP managed to win a large number of votes from the OBC, especially from the Kurmi, Maurya and Nishad communities, through the PDA formula. Therefore, the BJP had to suffer a crushing defeat. The BJP was completely wiped out in Awadh and Purvanchal belts of Uttar Pradesh. Akhilesh Yadav understands that if the BJP has to be defeated, only Yadav and Muslim votes will not work unless OBC and Dalit community castes are included. That is why after the Lok Sabha elections, candidates for the by-elections were drawn from three major OBC castes, including Yadav, Kurmi and Nishad.
BJP bets on OBC
Taking into account Yadav’s votes, the BJP has earmarked Anujesh Yadav as its candidate from Kajal seat. Dharamraj Nishad has contested from Katehri seat and is facing SP’s Shobhavati Verma. This seat has almost equal numbers of voters from Kurmi and Nishad castes. While the SP bets on Kurmi, the BJP is betting on the Nishad community. In the Majhwan seat, the BJP has fielded a candidate from Maurya Samaj against Nishad candidate from the BJP. The BJP has fielded Deepak Patel from Kurmi community for the Phulpur constituency. The BJP has fielded candidates following a well-thought-out strategy. To avoid an alliance between the two OBC castes, the SP fielded a candidate from Nishad in front of Kurmi and a candidate from the Peacock community in front of Nishad.
BSP played tricks in by-election
The BSP is contesting the Uttar Pradesh by-elections after a long time and Mayawati has fielded two Muslim, four upper caste, two OBC and one Dalit candidates. In the two seats in the state where Mayawati has fielded OBC candidates, Amit Verma from Katehri and Avnish Kumar Shakya from Karhal are the candidates. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has nominated Parmanand Garg from Ghaziabad, Virendra Shukla from West Samau, Jitendra Kumar Singh from Phulpur and Manjwa Deepak Tiwari. In this way, the BSP played a different trick and issued tickets to the four upper castes. Shah Nazar has been sent from Mirapur and Haji Rafatullah has been sent to Kundalki. Aligarh’s Khair seat is a safe zone for Dalits, with everyone from the BSP to the BJP and Samajwadi Party fielding Dalit candidates.
OBC voters most important in UP
There is no official data on caste in Uttar Pradesh, but it is estimated that the largest vote bank in Uttar Pradesh is that of backward classes. About 52% of the votes in the state came from backward classes and 43% from non-Yadav communities. Yadav is considered the core vote bank of the Samajwadi Party, while other OBC castes have never permanently sided with any party. Not only this, backward class voters never vote en masse for any political party.
In Uttar Pradesh, non-Yadav OBCs remained with the BJP between 2014 and 2022, but in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, all OBC castes are seen firmly siding with the SP. When the OBC stayed with the BJP, the monopoly of the BJP was maintained, and when they left, the BJP emerged as the second largest party. In UP, the OBC community has always voted along caste lines. That’s why all eyes, small and large, are focused on this vote bank. The Samajwadi Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party fielded leaders from the same community in the by-elections to woo different castes, including ultra-backward castes.
There are 79 OBC castes in Uttar Pradesh, of which the Yadav is the largest and the Kurmi community is the second largest. The total population of Yadavs in the OBC caste is 20%, while Yadavs constitute 11% of the state’s population and are considered the SP’s traditional voters. Meanwhile, non-Yadav OBC castes are the most important in UP, including Kurmi-Patel 7%, Kushwaha-Maurya-Shakya-Saini 6%, Lodh 4%, Gadaria-Pal 3%, Nishad-Mallah-Bind-Kashyap- Kevat 4%, Teli-Shahu-Jaiswal 4%, Jat 3%, Kumhar/Prajapati-Chauhan 3%, Kahar-Nai-Chaurasia 3%, Rajbhar 2% and Gurjar 2%.
The future of politics will be determined by by-elections
Everyone is betting on OBC in UP by-elections and trying to get only OBC votes. The BJP and CM Yogi have come up with a slogan to unite Hindu votes across castes: “If you divide, you will divide”. In response to this slogan of the BJP, the SP put up a poster saying, “Mathadheesh will divide and divide again… PDA will unite and win”. In this way, there is an ongoing effort between the BJP and SP to win OBC votes, but the future status and direction of UP will be decided by the OBC community. OBC voters play an important role in nine by-election seats in UP. No matter who the OBC goes with, the era of UP belongs to that side. That’s why the People’s Party and the Socialist Party are giving everything they have.
