Go East - this seems to be the mantra of political parties in this election year in Uttar Pradesh as leaders of all political parties have started making a beeline for this region which is considered politically sensitive and has given more leaders than workers.
For the last few days, movement of political leaders has increased in eastern UP. Congress national General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra visited Allahabad to meet the members of the Nishad family whose boats were damaged by the administration.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav is holding his party's block level meetings in Mirzapur while Bharatiya Janata Party President JP Nadda addressed a rally in Varanasi on Sunday.
On Saturday, leaders of all hues descended on Varanasi to pay their respect to Sant Ravidas. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav all paid obeisance at Sant Ravidas temple.
Politically, eastern Uttar Pradesh is very important for all parties. It is said that the party which controls eastern UP controls Lucknow. The importance of this region can be gauged from the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's parliamentary constituency, Varanasi, is the fulcrum of eastern UP politics.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath belongs to Gorakhpur, which is the gateway of eastern UP. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh belongs to Chandauli. Keshav Prasad Maurya also belongs to eastern UP.
Numerically also eastern UP holds an edge as it has 128 assembly seats in the 403-member Vidhan Sabha -roughly 31 per cent of the total assembly seats of Uttar Pradesh.
"Political activities in the state have increased because this is the election year. The state can go to polls in January-February, 2022. Therefore, leaders have started making forays into different parts of the state so that they can evaluate their strength," a Samajwadi Party lawmaker said.
Justifying his party's activities in eastern UP, he said farmers in western UP were up in arms against the government over farm laws and an atmosphere was building against the ruling BJP there.
"Consciously, the opposition parties are staying away from western UP because this agitation is now being led by farmers and we want it to stay that way only because once political leaders join, the agitation will take a political hue and it may fizzle out," he said.
Thus, he said, all the political parties were focusing on eastern Uttar Pradesh for the time being. "The party which sweeps eastern UP in the polls will rule UP," he added.
In 2017, the BJP won 320 seats with a vote percentage of over 40 points. Out of 128 seats of eastern UP, BJP won 78 seats with a strike rate of over 60 per cent. In 2012, Samajwadi Party had won 63 seats in eastern UP while in 2007, when the Bahujan Samaj Party introduced the Brahmin-Dalit formula, it had won 71 seats in eastern UP.
"This trend clearly shows that the party which dominates eastern UP forms the government in Lucknow. Another reason for this dominance is the castes and sub-castes. It is very difficult to predict which way these castes will move in a particular election. This has made eastern UP a big political maze which every political party wants to conquer," said Nomita P Kumar from the Giri Institute of Development Studies.
