How parties caste their votes in UP

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posted on 17 years ago — updated on 1 second ago

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The three leading parties in the election had their base vote, alliances gave them the plus vote.

New Delhi: The electoral battle for Uttar Pradesh this time was all about the ‘Plus Vote’. As any astute dhaba psephologist will tell you, each of the major players had its ‘base vote’ (this is by now a Hindi expression), crucial for staying in the electoral race.

But each party realised that their base vote was not enough to win elections. This was a necessary but not a sufficient condition, to borrow the language of philosophers. If you prefer the political science jargon, the marginal gains of cleavage-based mobilisation had started diminishing rapidly.

Thus the three big players in this election were looking for a ‘Plus Vote’ (a clumsy placeholder, till dhaba psephology comes up with a more innovative expression), something to supplement their ‘base vote’ and go past the rest. This is what accounts for Rajpur and Vaishya sammelans by SP, the Sarvajan Samaj strategy of the BSP and the return of Kalyan Singh to BJP and its alliance with the Apna Dal. The name of the game was to add some Plus Votes in such a way that you could continue to hold on to, and if possible consolidate, your Base Vote.

The story of the just concluded election in Uttar Pradesh is the story of the relative success and failures of these strategies. The Indian Express-CNN-IBN - CSDS post-poll survey provides a wealth of evidence to show how these completing strategies fared in the election. A survey is not just a way of (hopefully) advancing the knowledge of election results by a couple of days.

The real usefulness of a social scientific survey is unrelated to the accuracy of its forecast. It offers us insights into the political process that help us make sense of the electoral outcome. Here is an analysis of the fate of the political strategies followed by the four leading parties.

BSP best in caste game

No matter how many seats the BSP manages to win eventually, no one doubts that this time the ‘hawa’ (another beautiful expression of dhaba phephology) was with the BSP. Mayawati knew that her dalit voter was not very sensitive to what she did to court non-dalit voters. This left her free to aggressively pursue her search for Plus Vote.

Vote share of the BSP in the community

(Share in population)

Election 2007

Change from 2002

Jatav (12%)

+ 6

Other Dalits (10%)

+ 6

Vote share of the BSP in the community

(Share in population)

Election 2007

Change from 2002

Brahmin (6%)

+ 8

Other upper caste (11%)

+ 7

Lower OBC (11%)

+ 2

Muslim (18%)

+ 6

Vote share of the BSP among

Poor

Upper

Upper caste

Muslim

Lower OBC

All

BSP’s voters

PAGE_BREAK

While she strategically focussed her and media’s attention on the Brahmins, she quietly worked on other groups as well. She knew that the very possibility of ‘behnji’ coming to power was enough to galvanise her dalit votes.

The survey’s evidence suggests that she succeeded to some extent in both these objectives but in surprising ways. The BSP’s principal non-dalit vote came not from the Brahmins or other upper castes, but from lower OBCs and to lesser extent from the Muslims.

The ‘hawa’ in her favour helped her to consolidate the Jatav as well as non-Jatav dalit votes in an unprecedented manner. The BSP’s success in improving its vote shares across the caste divide was no simply a case of clever caste manoeuvres.

Mayawati’s image as an effective administrator contributed to the BSP’s hawa. Her popularity did not cross all caste barriers and did not pull many women voters to her party. Or else the BSP could have secured a majority on its own.

Yadavs still with SP

The Samajwadi Party started the election with a disadvantage. It did not have much to show for its rule. The vaguely positive image of being pro-development was more than weighed down by credible allegations of corruption and encouraging goonda raj (lawlessness).

Mulayam Singh, the next-door masterji, did not quite keep the company that would endear him to his electorate. The SP faced the famous Indian ‘anti-incumbency’ (India’s unique contribution to the dictionary of elections): except for the hard-core SP supporters, no one wants to give it another chance. The SP desperately needed to keep MY (Muslim-Yadav) vote and was hoping to add Kurmis, Rajputs, Vaishyas and others to its support base.

If the SP does not face a wipe-out, given the extent of resentment with Mulayam’s government, one reason is that the Yadav voters did polarise in favour of the SP, more than in the last election.

Yes

All

SP voters

BSP voter

BJP voter

Development

Law and order

Curbing corruption

Vote share of the SP in the community

(Share in population)

Election 2007

Change from 2002

Yadav (9%)

+ 5

Muslim (18%)

-- 8

Vote share of the SP in the community

(Share in population)

Election 2007

Change from 2002

Rajput ( 7%)

+ 8

Vaishya (2 %)

-- 5

Kurmi (4%0

+ 11

Lower OBC (11%)

+ 1

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But Mulayam Singh did not succeed in retaining the Muslim vote to the same extent, except in some regions. Attempts to mobilise the Rajput and Kurmi vote yielded partial dividends.

BJP aims for Lodh, Kurmi voters

The BJP leadership was acutely conscious of its basic limitation in this election: the Ramjanambhoomi card had lost its appeal and it was hard to get the voters to be nostalgic towards the last BJP government in the state. Hence its principal strategy was to build political and social coalitions. Kalyan Singh’s return to the BJP was to bring back the Lodh votes and the new alliance with the Apna Dal was to swing the Kurmi voters. The break-up with Ajit Singh was not expected to be very costly because the BJP could snatch some Jat votes from him.

The BJP’s judgment proved largely right about the Lodh and Jat vote, though they over-read the capacity of the Apna Dal to transfer the Kurmi vote. But where they slipped up was in retaining their Base Vote.

The BJP got barely half of the upper caste votes and could not improve upon its poor performance of 2002 in this respect. That made the BJP less than viable in a large number of seats, making it hard for it to get its erstwhile Plus Vote of the lower OBCs.

Vote share 2002

BJP

20.1

JDU/Samta

1.0

RTKP

3.4

Apna Dal

2.2

Total

26.7

All

BJP voters

Vote share of the BJP in the community

(Share in population)

Election 2007

Change from 2002

Brahmin (6%)

-- 2

Rajput (7%)

+ 4

Vaishya (2%)

+ 4

Other upper (2%)

+ 3

Vote share of the SP in the community

(Share in population)

Election 2007

Change from 2002

Lodh (3%)

+ 27

Kurmi (4%)

-- 6

Lower OBC (11%)

+ 1

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Congress eats humble pie

The Congress’ problem was that it did not have a base vote to begin with. Different parties had walked away with a slice each of the Congress’s rainbow in the post-Mandal Uttar Pradesh. It could either try to rebuild by courting one of the groups, say the Muslims, aggressively or go for cross-sectional mobilisation. The Congress leadership opted, wisely, for the latter, hoping that Rahul Gandhi’s last-minute campaign would do the trick.

Eventually it proved to be excessive optimism. The party may not have much to celebrate in terms of its tally on the day of counting. But it can look forward to some long-term gains. The improvement in the assembly election vote share can be a launching pad for the Lok Sabha election where the party tends to do better.

With at least one recognisable public face, the party will hope to cross the threshold of viability. It can take heart from the fact that it has done better among the OBCs and Muslims and not among upper castes. But it still remains a party that does better among urban voters than rural, women rather than men and the rich rather than the poor. That should worry a party of the aam aurat.

Lok Sabha 1996

Assembly 2002

Lok Sabha 2004

Assembly 2007

Lok Sabha 2009

15 ?

Vote share of the SP in the community

(Share in population)

Election 2007

Change from 2002

Brahmin (6%)

-- 6