Uttar Pradesh: The results could hobble or exalt the national government
Friday, February 03, 2017The Economist: A State of Shocks: India’s Biggest State Goes to the Polls
IF it were a country, Uttar Pradesh (UP) would rank just ahead of Brazil in population, right next to Britain in land area and close to Lesotho in poverty. Measured by the complexity of its politics, though, India’s most populous state is second to none. With a plethora of faiths, castes and political allegiances, spiced up by garish nepotism, rank criminality and a first-past-the-post voting system prone to wild swings, elections in UP are always raucous and notoriously tricky to predict.
Yet
they are important. The state’s 140m voters directly elect a sixth of the Lok
Sabha, the lower house of India’s parliament; those MPs include Narendra Modi,
the prime minister, as well as Rahul Gandhi, a high-up in India’s main
opposition party, Congress. The legislature that sits in the state capital,
Lucknow, also appoints a substantial share of members in India’s upper house, the
Rajya Sabha.
The
landslide capture of 73 of UP’s 80 Lok Sabha seats is what clinched a sweeping
majority for Mr Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2014 general
election. But the opposition’s lingering hold on the state assembly, dating from
local elections in 2012, helps thwart the BJP from gaining enough seats in the
Rajya Sabha to pass laws as it likes.
Small
wonder that most eyes are turned to UP, even though four smaller states (Goa,
Manipur, Punjab and Uttarakhand) are also heading to the polls in the next few
weeks, in a staggered series of elections whose final results will be announced
together on March 11th. If the BJP can repeat its success of 2014, it bodes
well for Mr Modi’s chances of securing another five-year term at the next national
election in 2019. His longer-range ambition of controlling the Rajya Sabha
would also draw closer, and with it the prospect of pursuing the less
constrained Hindu-nationalist agenda that the BJP’s base craves.
A
poor showing for the BJP, in contrast, could help lift its only nationwide
rival, the once-powerful Congress, out of a prolonged tailspin. It could also
provide a platform for either of two parties that are strong in the state, the
Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), to gain influence in
Delhi, India’s capital. Both have won state elections in the past. The BSP’s
firebrand leader, Mayawati, pulled off a stunning triumph in 2007 by forging an
alliance between her own, low-caste Dalits, who make up 21% of UP’s people, and
the state’s Muslim minority, who account for a further 19%. But her frivolous
spending—on multiple statues of herself, among other things—paved the way for a
comeback in 2012 by the SP.
Dominated
by the Yadav family, the SP is a traditional patronage machine with a strong
foothold among mid-ranked castes. (Yadav is also a term for several
caste-groups that together make up 9% of UP’s population.) Its current scion
and the state’s chief minister, Akhilesh Yadav (pictured), has broadened this
base by appealing to upwardly mobile young people, using ambitious development
plans and handouts of computers for students, as well as by reaching out to
Muslims.
Such
newfangled ways rankle with the party’s old guard, which includes his father
and uncle. A tussle over control of the party, including a legal battle over
the ownership of its symbol—a bicycle—has given the SP little time to prepare.
A last-minute electoral alliance with Congress has prompted further dissent
within the ranks. But the younger Mr Yadav is personally popular, and his
newfound friendship with Mr Gandhi, whose forebears are somewhat more
illustrious, gives their alliance a respectable look.
Three’s a crowd
India’s
notoriously unreliable opinion polls put the SP/Congress and BJP in a rough tie
at just over 30% each, with the BSP trailing slightly behind. But because the
voting system can easily tilt on a few percentage points, few experts are
willing to call a winner just yet. They are not even sure how Mr Modi’s most
controversial policy, the sudden voiding, in November, of 86% of India’s paper
currency, will play out. “Demonetisation” caused severe shock, with businesses
unable to trade and workers unable to collect pay. Yet even among the poor and
hardest hit, many still believe that Mr Modi did the right thing by hitting the
rich.
The
BJP, which has a base among upper-caste Hindus, holds some useful cards. Mr
Modi is a strong national figure, and his party is less tainted with corruption
than its rivals. The just-revealed national budget, unsurprisingly, includes
tax breaks for the poor and for small businesses, as well as boosts to spending
on rural welfare. The BJP can also rely on grassroots help from
Hindu-nationalist groups. Its local candidates have not shied away from
pressing religious buttons, well-worn in a state that has witnessed periodic
sectarian clashes. The most recent, in 2013, left at least 42 Muslims and 20
Hindus dead.
But
such tactics were tried in state elections in 2015 in the neighbouring state of
Bihar, where the BJP had also done well in national elections. They failed
after two local parties unexpectedly buried their differences and merged,
winning in a landslide thanks in part to a solid Muslim vote.
Few
Muslims will vote for the BJP, leaving the SP and BSP to compete for their
favour. But a visit to Rampur, a Muslim-dominated district in the north-west of
the state, reveals that at a local level this contest is not even about parties
so much as personalities. Kazim Ali Khan, a candidate for the BSP, happens to
be the titular nawab of Rampur, whose ancestors once ruled the district as a
princely state. Abdullah Azam Khan, the SP candidate, is from a rival clan
whose forebears are said to have worked in the royal stables. The two clans
have been enemies for generations.
Mr
Khan the nawab, who has switched party allegiance several times over the years,
accuses the rival clan of exploiting public office to enrich itself by grabbing
land from the rural poor. Speaking in a tent erected in a village, he urges
voters to punish the other side. “This is not an election,” he says. “It’s a
war.”
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