THE PUZZLE OF RESERVED SEATS IN UTTAR PRADESH

A total of 131 seats (18.42 per cent) of the 545 Lok Sabha seats are reserved for representatives of Scheduled Castes (84) and Scheduled Tribes (47). These seats are reserved in proportion to the SC/ST population as a share of the total population in a state. According to the 2011 census, these sections comprised about 16.6 per cent and 8.6 per cent, respectively, of India's population.

For the first time in the 2014 parliamentary elections, the BJP won the largest number of seats in these constituencies — 66 of the 131 seats. This is also the highest number of reserved constituency seats won by any single largest party ever, since 1991. The BJP retained almost 88 per cent of the seats it had won in 2009.

Uttar Pradesh, which has the highest scheduled caste population and where the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) have traditionally had a strong following, saw the same trend: The BJP won swept all the 17 reserved constituencies in the state in 2014. The SP, which had 10 seats in 2009, could not retain even a single SC seat.

This time, there is an alliance between the SP and the BSP. Central to this is a seamless vote transfer. The evidence suggests that if the SP and the BSP votes are added, in several cases the combination will trounce the BJP. But such was the party’s stupendous performance that this will not apply in all cases. Either way, in the reserved seats, at least, the BJP may suffer: If arithmetic is all that goes into an electoral victory.