As UP poll approaches, state may witness identity-based election management in name of secular unity
New Delhi: As Uttar Pradesh gears up for its crucial Assembly election next year, poll arithmetic is driving ideologically disparate Opposition entities into tactical huddles with minority vote bank being at the core for their survival.
After the 2024 Lok Sabha election alliance success, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav is again seen bonding with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
Meanwhile, Asaduddin Owaisi, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) supremo, has signalled his willingness to hold hands with the INDIA Bloc, say recent reports.
The singular, simple aim of this political camaraderie is seen as an attempt to ensure that the state’s substantial minority electorate does not splinter.
Multi-cornered contests have largely benefited the BJP by fracturing the anti-incumbency vote, analysts have repeatedly pointed out.
While he has long been accused by secular allies of acting as a “spoiler” or the “BJP’s B-team” that inadvertently helps the saffron party by splitting minority votes, Owaisi has in the past sought alliance with the Opposition.
In an effort at minority vote consolidation, he made similar outreaches in recent state elections like Bihar and West Bengal. It was the Opposition parties that ignored his repeated attempts in both states.
Minority voters in recent elections have increasingly demonstrated a preference for the strongest viable candidate capable of defeating the BJP, where the AIMIM unashamedly projects itself as the principal benefactor of a particular community.
This demographic leverage leads to parties attempting minority consolidation as the sheer weight of combined numbers across Uttar Pradesh’s electoral map definitely gives an edge.
Uttar Pradesh has Muslims comprising approximately 20 per cent of the state’s population. Among the state’s 403 Assembly constituencies, around 110 are reported to comprise between 30-39 per cent minority constituents.
In the rest, some 44 seats are estimated to have between 40-49 per cent minority population, while close to a dozen with over half the population from this community.
With approximately 165 seats directly or indirectly influenced by minority demographics, any division in this bloc can instantly ruin Opposition chances.
However, the poll-ride for such alliances has not always been smooth. In the run up to the 2017 Assembly election, the Akhilesh-Rahul alliance was billed as the coming together of “UP ke ladke (UP boys), but it collapsed under its own weight.
The state delivered a crushing three-fourths majority to the BJP, as the alliance failed to smoothly transfer traditional caste votes between the two parties, leaving them with just a fraction of seats.
Realising their limits, the SP looked elsewhere later, forming a grand alliance with Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), leaving the Congress out.
Even this apparently heavy-arithmetic combination barely scratched the BJP’s dominance, securing only 15 seats combined.
The 2024 Lok Sabha result, however, changed the script dramatically when the SP and Congress combined forces under the broader secular umbrella.
By synchronising their campaigns, avoiding overlapping candidates, and drawing in non-Yadav OBC and Dalit segments alongside a tightly consolidated minority vote, the alliance caused a major upset.
The SP emerged as the third-largest party in Parliament with 37 seats, while the Congress registered a remarkable revival.
However, as argued by many poll analysts, Parliamentary and Assembly elections have separate electoral dynamics, where the narrative and voter expectations mostly differ.
But in both cases, arguing that an unfragmented minority base acts as the indispensable foundation, the Opposition attempts alliances upon it.
Without the assurance of block voting, their wider social engineering appears to fall apart.
As another election approaches, the state is set to witness a clinical exercise in identity-based election management, wrapped neatly in the language of secular unity.