The Bharatiya Janata Party hopes to win 70 out of the 120 Lok Sabha seats in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. These two states in the Hindi heartland are crucial to the party’s calculations; if the BJP wins, say, 50 seats instead of 70, it could make all the difference between Narendra Modi becoming the next Prime Minister of India or not. Will the children of the Ganga be significantly swayed by the so-called Modi wave? The answer to this question may well determine the future course of politics in the world’s largest democracy.
Even after Uttarakhand was carved out of Uttar Pradesh in 2000, with 80 MPs, it is the state where one out of six Indians live. If Uttar Pradesh was an independent country, it would have been the sixth most-populous country in the world after China (with a population of 1.36 billion), India (1.24 billion), the United States of America (317 million), Indonesia (nearly 250 million) and Brazil (over 201 million). Before Bihar was bifurcated by creating Jhar-khand in 2000, it was the second most populous state in India sending 54 MPs to the Lok Sabha, more than Maharashtra (48), Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal (42 each) followed by Tamil Nadu (39). Now Bihar elects 40 MPs.
The political significance of Uttar Pradesh in Indian politics is underscored by the fact that eight out of India’s 14 Prime Ministers are from the state. An interesting aspect of India’s political economy is that despite substantial representation in the Union government, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have been (and to an extent, still remain) economically and socially backward, with the politics of caste and religion playing important roles in influencing electoral outcomes.
This is, however, not to deny the fact that in recent years, both states have witnessed impressive improvement in their economic and social indicators. Many believe the importance of identity politics has diminished in both states.
One of the important reasons why India has been ruled by coalitions since 1996 is the political fragmentation of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Over the last decade-and-a-half, the Samajwadi Party led by Mulayam Singh Yadav and the Bahujan Samaj Party headed by Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh and the Rashtriya Janata Dal led by Lalu Prasad Yadav and the Janata Dal (United) headed by current chief minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar, have dominated politics. The country’s two largest political parties, the Congress and the BJP have frequently been pushed to the fringes in these two states.
In 1996, 1998 and 1999, when Uttar Pradesh was undivided and sent 85 MPs to the Lok Sabha, the number of Congress MPs crashed from five to zero and then rose to 10, thereafter remaining static at the same number in 2004 (by which time Uttarakhand had been formed) and in 2009, before rising to 22 in the 2009 elections. In undivided Bihar, the number of Congress MPs went up from two to five between 1996 and 1998 and then came down to four in 1999; the state elected three Congress MPs in 2004 and two in 2009.
The number of BJP MPs from Bihar went up from 18 in 1996 to 20 in 1998 and 23 in 1999, then plummeted to five in 2004 and thereafter rose to 12 in 2009 — the saffron party and the JD(U) were together for 17 years till June last year. In Uttar Pradesh, the number of BJP MPs has fluctuated from 52 in 1996 and a high of 57 in 1998 to 29 in 1999, 10 in 2004 and 2009.
In 2009, Rahul Gandhi was given considerable credit for reviving the Congress in Uttar Pradesh. His subsequent performance as a political leader has disappointed many. The Congress became extremely weak after Assembly elections took place in the state in February-March 2012, winning only 28 out of 400 seats, just six more than in the previous Assembly elections held in 2007. The SP came to power defeating the BSP government in the state. If the Congress had been able to repeat its performance in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections in the 2012 Assembly elections, the party should have won more than four times the number of seats it actually won.
In 2009, despite the support it received from the underprivileged dalit community, the BSP could not muster much support from the other social sections that it had hoped for. Consequently, Ms Mayawati’s hopes of becoming the Prime Minister of India were dashed. Yet she has certainly realised the importance of “socially inclusive” politics in India’s heterogeneous society divided by caste hierarchies. It would, however, be premature to write her off.
Her party stood second in as many as 48 out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats securing over 27 per cent of the votes polled in the state five years ago. The BSP lost the 2012 Assembly elections in the state — its vote share shrunk by 3.5 per cent and the number of MLAs owing allegiance to the party came down by 126 seats. Its archrival, the SP gained an identical share of the votes and an almost-identical number of seats (127) in the Assembly.
In Uttar Pradesh, the Congress had gained substantially in 2009 because Muslims, who had over the recent past been voting for the SP and the BSP, voted in substantial numbers for the Congress. Not a single Muslim candidate of the SP managed to win a seat in the state. In large areas of Uttar Pradesh, the population of Muslims is close to a fifth of the total. The political mood in Uttar Pradesh has undergone a major change. The Muzaffarnagar riots will probably consolidate the Muslim vote in favour of the BSP, to which 21 out of the state’s 80 MPs currently owe allegiance to. Analysts argue that BJP may gain from the consolidation of Hindu votes if SP was to fade away and if a substantial section of Muslim voters shift allegiance to the BSP (leaving both the SP and the Congress).
It would, however, be premature to write off the SP as a political force in Uttar Pradesh, just as it would be to argue that the JD(U) led by incumbent Chief Minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar would get almost wiped out from the state in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. In 2009, Bihar was one of the few states in the country where the BJP and the NDA performed creditably. While the number of MPs belonging to the JD(U) jumped from six in 2004 to 20 in 2009, the number of MPs owing allegiance to the BJP also rose from five to 12. Has Mr Kumar miscalculated badly by breaking away from the BJP or will his gamble work?
Just as the 2002 riots helped the BJP become stronger in Gujarat, the communal violence drove many liberal Hindus in other parts of India away from the saffron party. Will a similar phenomenon be witnessed post-Muzaffarnagar? How badly will the BJP be hurt by internal dissensions that have come to the fore after tickets were distributed?
The answers to these and many other questions will be known on May 16.
