The BJP has sent key organisers, strategists and hundreds of workers to Karhal constituency
Amid shifting of majority votes, the next phases of polls in Central UP hold the key. The party winning the region reigns Lucknow.
The trends in the first two phases in UP and Uttarakhand turned curiouser. The minority votes are consolidating and majority votes are shifting. It gives jitters to contestants and is becoming a serious study for social scientists.
It is not easy to say if the trends would continue in the next phases. The split of majority votes finds echo in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Kalyanpur, Kanpur Dehat addresses. Modi called upon the "Hindus not to split their votes" deprecating Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee's move to divide majority votes in Goa.
Whether it changes the perception in Central UP and leads to Hindutva consolidation or not is to be watched. The Samajwadi Party got 90 seats here in 2012 and a mere 12 in 2017. BJP also had a loss and windfall. In 2012, it got 10 seats that soared to whopping 90 of 118 seats in 2017.
The region spreads from Hardoi in the West, Lucknow, Kanpur - heart of the region -- Farrukhabad, Kannauj, Etawah -the Yadav belt - to Bundelkhand. The region understands the pulse and the party that controls it reigns UP.
It also has the key seat of Karhal. It will decide whether Akhilesh Yadav would be in the UP Assembly and could lead the state or not. The intense contest forced SP to recall relaxing patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav to address a rally at Karhal on February 16.
Now Akhilesh faces stiff resistance as BJP pits central minister Satya Pal Singh Baghel against him. The BJP has sent key organizers, strategists and hundreds of workers to the constituency. It is too prestigious for the party. High pitched contest is crucial if Baghel could emerge a dark horse like Shubhendu Adhikari who trounced Mamata Banerjee at Nandigram in Bengal.
Ayodhya is adjacent or almost a part of the region. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had considered contesting from there. But Ramjanmabhoomitemple is not a great vote attractor. In the recent Zila (district) Panchayat elections BJP could get eight of 40 seats. The rest went to SP and allies. Yogi quietly shifted to Gorakhpur. Chief priest of Ramjanmabhoomi temple Mahant Satyendra Das says he told Adityanath to shift as there is commotion in Ayodhya for houses and shops being demolished due to infrastructure projects in the wake of the construction of the temple. Soaring real estate prices and manipulative land deals also are issues, party workers say.
This is an aspirational region. It contributes significantly to agriculture but is poor on human development index. This makes the contest tough in these seats.
The region remembers Covid-19 bodies floating in the rivers, the difficult migrant labourers' trek, acute poverty and farmer problems. Akhilesh is contesting on the issue of an empathetic regime. The two major contenders have their strengths and weaknesses. Most sitting MLAs are proving a liability for the BJP.
While SP campaign is measured, sharp and avoids inciting passion, the BJP is aggressive, often raising threats from "SP's goondas, Hijab and Hindu insecurity", an attempt to polarize. There are sections of the people who are heeding Yogi. But there are others who have decided to oppose him.There is a palpable yearning for change in the regions.
A new social coalition is emerging. Majority community is aligning with unemployment, high prices and issues of junking of ten-year-old cars, stray cattle guzzling crops and many more.
But in the first two phases it is also observed that caste groups like Tyagis and some others were swept by the Modi and community sentiments, 'rashtravad' (nationalism), law and order, women's safety and free food dole.
The silent voters may give jitters to everyoone. Amid euphoria there are fears too as minority voters consolidate. The political parties are apprehensive of BJP's influence over the official machinery.
Akhilesh Yadav, instead of selecting only minority and Yadav candidates like in 2017, has a broader caste mix alasoincluding other OBCs, Jats, Thakurs, Brahmin, Saini, Shakya, Kurmi, Gujar and other marginal castes. This constitutes about 44 percent of the total voters. He has been adventurous in pitting Thakur, Brahmin, Jat, Gujar and other candidates even in minority hotbeds in Saharanpur, Deoband and Amroha.
The bouquet, RLD leader SK Mukherjee says, is more practical than Yogi's 80-20 (percent) formula. He excludes 20 percent minorities. In lighter vein, he says that Yogi is attempting for 80 marks in an exam against Akhilesh's 100. But polls are more than arithmetic with emotions and creepy calculations.
(The writer is a senior journalist. The views expressed are personal.)
