The battle for 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh was to play an instrumental role in BJP’s this mission.
And if there was a pivotal reason behind the saffron party falling short of majority on its own, it was the surprise result from Uttar Pradesh. And the chief architect of this surprise was Akhilesh Yadav.
With Mayawati deciding to go solo, pundits and eventually all exit polls predicted that the BJP had done enough election engineering to maintain its dominance. But that wasn’t to be. The election turned out to be silent, localised.
The election results show that Prime Minister Modi’s grand narrative on dynastic politics and their alleged corruption didn’t find much traction.
Three factors worked for Akhilesh and his Samajwadi Party. One, against expectations, the loyal Jatav voter of the BSP moved to Samajwadi Party. Mayawati’s demotion of her nephew in the midst of the campaign could have been the trigger. Two, the booth level coordination of INDIA bloc at the cadre level particularly in eastern Uttar Pradesh provided dividends. Third Akhilesh, in fact, coined a new slogan for the vote base he banked on this time, expanding from “M-Y” or Muslim-Yadav to “PDA” or “Pichde (backward classes or OBCs), Dalits, Alpasankhyak (minorities)”.
So, while five SP tickets went to Yadavs, the Samajwadi Party fielded 27 candidates belonging to other OBCs, 11 upper castes (including four Brahmins, two Thakurs, two Vaishyas and one Khatri) and four Muslims. It nominated 15 Dalit candidates in SC-reserved seats.
In the run-up to the polls, Akhilesh had said that most of the backward people, Dalits and minorities would unitedly back the SP’s PDA plank due to which the BJP’s “equations and previous formulas” would fail this time. His claim came true.