By Roshan Kishore

The Uttar Pradesh elections seem to be resurrecting past memories of a Mandal versus Kamandal contest at the level of polemics. After chief minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yogi Adityanath’s claim of the polls being an 80% versus 20% (read Hindu versus Muslim) contest, Yogi’s former cabinet colleague Swami Prasad Maurya -- he has left the BJP to join the Samajwadi party (SP) -claimed that the election was actually a fight between 85% versus 15% (read non-upper caste Hindus and Muslims versus upper castes). The Mandal-kamandal binary and its various mutations have defined politics in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar for three decades now.

The underlying logic, at least at the level of rhetoric, is simple. The votaries of Mandal claim that thanks to India’s feudal past, upper castes have historically exploited the Other Backward Classes (OBCS), Scheduled Castes (SCS), Scheduled Tribes (STS) and majority of Muslims in India and the only way to undo this injustice is to capture political power, a project which is eminently possible thanks to India’s universal franchise system. OBCS, SCS, STS and Muslims put together vastly outnumber upper caste Hindus.

The BJP, on the other hand, has always claimed that Mandal based parties (such as the SP) have only helped their own causes (for instance, the Yadavs in both Bihar and UP) in the name of social emancipation after capturing power. It is only when the BJP is brought to power that true development, welfare and emancipation takes place, the BJP argues.

But polemics in politics need not always confirm to reality. Does this hold for the Mandal-kamandal binary as well? Here are three charts which try to answer this question.