Sirathu, an assembly constituency in Uttar Pradesh’s Kaushambi district, is one of the keenly watched seats in phase-V of the assembly polls. It is one of those seats where you have to have support from non-Yadav other backward classes (OBCs) and non-Jatav Dalits to win elections.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won this seat in the 2012 and 2017 assembly elections and has fielded Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya this time.
Thanks partly to an alliance with parties like the Apna Dal, the Nishad Party, and OP Rajbhar’s Suheldev Rajbhar Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) at different points of time, the BJP has been getting a sizeable chunk of non-Yadav OBC and non-Jatav Dalit votes in the last few elections.
The BJP was estimated to have received less than 20 per cent non-Yadav OBC votes in the 2012 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, according to Lokniti-CSDS survey data. It jumped closer to 60 per cent in 2017. In fact, in the last three elections in Uttar Pradesh — two Lok Sabha and one assembly — non-Yadav OBCs have solidly backed the BJP, survey data shows.
Thanks to the newly stitched social alliance, the BJP made handsome gains in the region in the last assembly elections. From a modest vote share of just 13 per cent and five assembly seats in 2012, the BJP’s vote share climbed to 37 per cent in 2017. The Samajwadi Party’s seat tally, on the other hand, dropped from an impressive 41 to just five in this period. The performance of the BSP and the Congress has been quite lackluster in all these seats in all elections since 2012.
Many small parties with the SP this time
Will the BJP’s momentum continue in 2022? What has changed this time is that Apna Dal has split into two, the SBSP is part of the Samajwadi Party alliance and many other smaller parties representing the aspirations of one or more OBC groups are opposed to the BJP.
The outcome in Sirathu and 60 more seats voting on February 27 will let us know whether the BJP’s hold over these social groups remains intact or not.
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This is also the region where privileged social groups like the Brahmins have pockets of influence. In Sirathu, for instance, Brahmins are estimated to account for nearly a fifth of the total voting population. There are sizeable chunks of Brahmin voters in certain assembly seats of the Prayagraj district also. They have been fully behind the BJP in recent years.
In contrast to other regions, there is only a handful of Dalit and Muslim-dominated seats in the region. According to calculations based on Census data, in six of the 61 assembly constituencies going to vote in phase-V, Dalits account for 30 per cent or more of the voting population. There are an equal number of Muslim-dominated seats.
Money power galore
To get a sense of how money power has been increasingly becoming a dominant theme in elections, one just has to look at the average assets of candidates of mainstream parties.
Compared to the average assets of all candidates in phase-V — Rs 2.48 crores — “the average assets per candidate for 52 BJP candidates analyzed is Rs 9.95 crores, 59 SP candidates analyzed is Rs 5.90 crores, 61 BSP candidates have average assets of Rs 4.63 crores,” notes the Association for Democratic Reforms.
In all, 25 per cent of all candidates have assets in excess of Rs 2 crores. And 27 per cent of candidates have declared pending criminal cases against themselves, ADR data shows.
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