Uttar Pradesh | Yogi, Akhilesh in bypoll joust

The losses in the LS polls have put pressure on the BJP and CM Yogi Adityanath to perform well in the UP bypolls

ISSUE DATE: Sep 30, 2024

The ruling BJP has an outsized majority in the Uttar Pradesh assembly, so why then is the state and, to a certain degree even New Delhi, waiting with bated breath for the byelections in 10 seats there? Well, the party’s dismal Lok Sabha results for one: its cave-in from 62 seats to 33 was like the hit to the solar plexus that nearly felled the whole body. The public spats that erupted within— between saffron stalk, root and sundry branches—have not ceased. As a consequence, Yogi Adityanath and his ‘bulldozer’ government look less than rock-solid for perhaps the first time. On the other hand, the opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) looks a lot more peppy after becoming the party with the most MPs from the state—37, with ally Congress snaffling six more.

The bypoll dates haven’t been announced yet but Yogi has already assigned 30 of his ministers seat-wise responsibilities to ensure the BJP puts up a good show. The seats, too, are critical: the SP had won five in the 2022 election, the BJP three and NDA allies Nishad Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal (an SP partner then) one each. Nine of the seats were vacated after the incumbent MLAs contested and won the LS polls; the Sishamau seat fell vacant after the SP MLA, Irfan Solanki, was disqualified.

SP chief Akhilesh Yadav is engaged in expanding his successful ‘PDA (Pichhda-Dalit- Alpasankhyak)’ strategy. The new segment the party wants to add to its rainbow of OBCs, SCs and minorities (read Muslim) are the Brahmins. Recently, Akhilesh appointed the SP’s veteran Brahmin face, Mata Prasad Pandey, 81, as leader of the Opposition in the UP assembly. SP insiders say this is a “forward looking” move, with the 2027 assembly election in mind, when the party will be fighting a “Thakur CM”. In eastern UP, Thakurs and Brahmins have an old rivalry and if Akhilesh’s ‘PDA Plus’ pans out, it could be a big challenge for the NDA in the state.

The SP had already experimented with a wider social base in the Lok Sabha polls, going beyond its traditional M-Y (Muslim- Yadav) votebank. Of its 62 candidates, only five were Yadavs (all from Akhilesh’s Saifai family) and four were Muslims. Back in May, signalling a new warmth towards non-Yadav OBCs, the SP had appointed Shyamlal Pal, an OBC from the Pal community, as state president. Talking to india today, Akhilesh described his caste perestroika as part of his intent to “raise the voice of 90 per cent of the population. Our PDA includes everyone. Now the BJP is running scared because we are expanding. We will defeat them in the bypolls too”.

Meanwhile, the BJP’s internal crisis has taken on the contours of a near-rebellion. Yogi’s spat with his deputy CMs, Keshav Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, is already the talk of the town in Lucknow. The high command has met all the players involved but was unable to extract a lasting solution. For now, the CM and his deputies have been told to keep the peace and concentrate on winning the bypolls.

Among the seats going to the polls, Karhal in Mainpuri (which Akhilesh vacated) and Milkipur in Faizabad (Ayodhya) will be prestige battles for the SP. The party’s Awadhesh Prasad used to be the Milkipur MLA and his shock LS win in the temple town had rocked the BJP. Ghaziabad Sadar and Khair will be the sure seats for the BJP, while Phulpur should see a tough fight (where the SP candidate lost the seat by just 4,000-odd votes).

In his seven years as chief minister, Yogi has never faced a challenge to his power; an unfavourable result in the bypolls could change that. Already, the antagonist section within the state BJP is blaming him for the LS reverses, claiming that the OBCs and Dalits are drifting away from the party because of “the upper caste CM”. Everyone is watching to see how Yogi will fare in what is his first big crisis. The next assembly poll, in 2027, is too distant for this to qualify as a “semi-final”, but the stakes are surely as high.