The 2022 battle for Lucknow begins
Conventionally, issues of leadership, politics of identity, alliances, and organisation have determined Uttar Pradesh’s politics. But will the first post-covid-19 election alter its political categories?
India’s politicians have shifted focus from the east and the south to the north. Even as the country battles the devastating second wave of Covid-19 infections, both political activity and political competition have intensified in states going to polls early next year. And nowhere is this battle most intense, and arguably most crucial for the future of Indian politics and democracy, than in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP).
With 80 Lok Sabha seats; 403 assembly seats; a population of over 200 million; some of the most dismal health and education indicators in the country; high degrees of unemployment and massive outmigration for work, the future of India’s political trajectory, aspirations to meet sustainable development goals, and nature of economic growth rests substantially on what happens in and to UP.
With elections scheduled for only February-march next year — and nine months is an eternity in Indian politics — it would be foolish to attempt predicting possible outcomes in the state. But there are two ways to examine the state of political play in UP at this moment, as parties begin strategising, carving out political and social coalitions, and investing in their messaging to gear up for the polls.
The first way to assess UP’S political dynamic is using the conventional framework for understanding the state. Within this analytical scheme, five factors will play a crucial role — leadership, caste, religion, organisation, and alliances.
On leadership, Yogi Adityanath — he was appointed chief minister (CM) after the 2017 elections, as opposed to being projected as the face before the polls — has, over the past four years, established his own personal brand in the state. This brand rests, in turn, on two elements.
The first is maintaining a strongman Hindutva leader image — from “anti-romeo” squads to legislation against interfaith marriages; from cow protection as one of the State’s top political objectives to a pattern of persecution of dissent; from the focus on the Ram Temple at Ayodhya to presiding over a power structure that has barely any Muslim presence in a state with over 40 million Muslims, Yogi Adityanath clearly believes that the mandate of 2017 was for the Hinduisation of UP’S polity, and thinks of this as a politically appealing platform. But alongside this, the second element of this image is projecting himself as a modern CM — from investment summits to advertising any global report (even when it may not be an endorsement), from claiming success over improved law and order (even when these claims may not stand up to factual scrutiny and there has been a valorisation of extra-judicial methods, including encounters) to projecting himself as a “clean” no-nonsense administrator.
Whether this leadership model has the sanction of UP’S citizens is a key question for 2022. Challenging him will be the Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav — whose tenure does evoke a degree of nostalgia for his focus on infrastructure and initiatives, but who remains handicapped by his Yadavcentric party and seeming unwillingness to put in the hard grind required of politics; Mayawati — whose vote base is shrinking with every election, and who is seen as having a behind-the-scenes understanding with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP); and Priyanka Gandhi — who is in charge of the UP Congress but has neither shifted to Lucknow nor has been declared as the party’s CM face nor has been able to build the organisational might required to take on the BJP.
And then there will be the identity-related questions that will determine UP’S electoral dynamic. The BJP’S ability to maintain its multi-caste alliance will be on test here — at a time when there are tensions between Brahmins and Thakurs among its upper caste base (with the CM’S Thakur identity seen as dictating its governance priorities); between upper castes and those belonging to other backward classes (OBCS) over powersharing; between upper castes (particularly Thakurs) and Dalits and OBCS and Dalits; within OBCS on the question of sub-categorisation; and between the government and
Jats, especially of western UP, over farm laws.
The Opposition’s ability to go beyond its traditional vote base will also be on test here. Will the SP manage to go beyond its Yadavmuslim base and win support of other segments? Does the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) still enjoy the absolute support of its Jatav base, and can it expand this to include other Dalit sub-castes as well as those from other social groups? Does the Congress have any core base left at all?
All of this is also, of course, tied to the question of religious polarisation. The BJP’S strategy of consolidating Hindu castes (barring Yadavs and Jatavs) has yielded dividends in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls, besides the 2017 state polls. Has this Hindu consolidation deepened, or have fractures begun to emerge? On the other side, all opposition parties have relied on Muslim consolidation — but the Muslim vote has either got fragmented, or been insufficient to propel any of them to power.
The fourth conventional factor is organisational and financial strength — where the BJP is miles ahead. And the fifth is alliances.
To consolidate the anti-bjp vote, the SP and Congress tied up in 2017 — with the latter dragging the former down with it. In 2019, the SP and BSP collaborated — but neither did neat vote transfers happen nor was their collective social coalition enough. A wide opposition alliance may consolidate anti-bjp votes but also runs the risk of being seen as catering to Muslims, which then allows the BJP to consolidate Hindus.
All these factors will remain relevant in the polls next year. But there is a second framework to examine the UP political landscape — as India’s first major post-covid-19 election. To be sure, there have been elections in Bihar, Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry — but this was, for most part, before the staggering scale of the suffering inflicted by the second wave of Covid-19 infections.
UP is a key battleground of the current Covid-19 war. Anecdotal reports and independent assessments clearly suggest that the health system in the state has collapsed, even as the virus has spread across rural areas. Testing is hard. Hospital admissions are harder. Basic medical support in terms of oxygen support and drugs hasn’t reached the poor, especially in rural areas. Official figures do not capture the scale of either the cases or the deaths — now symbolised by bodies floating on the Ganga. The return of migrants from India’s urban centres has added to economic distress.
All of this has meant that despite a somewhat stifled political environment, political space in UP is opening up. There are more voices criticising the government, both at the state and central level, and questioning the CM. There also appears to be, in parts, an erosion of trust in Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
And that is why both the management of Covid-19 and the pace of vaccination in UP will be big political variables that may well intersect and alter the older categories of politics of the state. As politicians turn towards the battle for Lucknow, the themes and messages of the campaign, and the salience of the public health crisis, will probably give as much insight into the quality of Indian democracy as the outcome itself.