Updated: January 12, 2022 6:39 PM IST 
New Delhi: As contours of rival political formation and parties’ efforts to woo voters became clear with the countdown for the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly Election, several factors are likely to play a major role in the upcoming election. The polling for 403 Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh will take place in a seven-phase manner on February 10, February 14, February 20, February 23, March 3 and March 7. The results of the 2022 UP polls will be declared on March 10.
The caste equation remains a primary factor as political parties stretched themselves to woo voters of respective caste bases in Uttar Pradesh. Ahead of the election, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on January 2 offered puja at a temple having a 108-foot-tall statue of Parshuram in village Mahurakala on Purvanchal Express near Lucknow to attract Brahmins towards his party. Akhilesh Yadav’s move was seen as a Brahmin outreach bid.
जय-जय श्री परशुराम हो
सर्व शुभम्-कल्याण हो!!! pic.twitter.com/MGzhXdAEZ2— Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) January 2, 2022
Days after Akhilesh Yadav’s Brahmin outreach efforts, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma and other BJP leaders inaugurated a temple of the god in Lucknow. The move is being seen as another attempt by the BJP to placate the electorally dominant Brahmin community. In political circles, the unveiling of Lord Parshuram’s statue in Lucknow was seen as part of the BJP’s efforts to counter Akhilesh Yadav’s bid to impress the Brahmin community ahead of polls.
However, BJP dismissed the Brahmin outreach bid and claimed the party has honoured “all castes and community” since time. “It’s not BJP but Akhilesh who is imitating us. BJP has installed idols of Parshuram in Kanpur and other places earlier too. Not only Parshuram, the BJP has also been honouring icons of all caste,” Sharma said.
Brahmins account for nearly 13 per cent of the state’s population and they are being wooed by all the major parties to brighten their chance in the assembly elections only months away from now.
BSP chief Mayawati has already deployed her party’s Brahmin face S C Misra to mobilise their support to revive the 2007 social engineering formula of the Dalits-Brahmins combination.
Dalits in Uttar Pradesh are an influential caste group. Their population is around 21.6 per cent, which includes 66 Dalit sub-castes. Seventeen of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP are reserved for Scheduled Castes. Of these, the BJP won 14 in the 2019 general election, including the Hathras seat. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) won two and the Apna Dal one seat.
Since 1993, when late Kanshi Ram formed an alliance with Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party and formed the first BSP government in a coalition, Dalits have been voting en bloc for BSP. It was Mayawati who led the BSP to its first government with a majority in 2007 and in 2022.
A major factor that may divide Dalit votes, especially in west UP, is the emergence of the Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad. Chandrashekhar Azad in Novermber last year had declared that he will contest against UP CM Yogi Adityanath in 2022 Uttar Pradesh polls.
Poll rallies and public meetings have been cut short this time due to the coronavirus pandemic as various parties have started rolling out plans for a virtual election campaign. The Election Commission, in an announcement on Saturday, banned public meetings and poll rallies till January 15 in view of the spike in COVID cases across in the country. COVID pandemic is set to play a major role for UP Election 2022 as voters will decide on the popularity of the BJP government’s handling of the coronavirus situation in the state.
As campaigns shift to the online mode, registering presence and expanding their digital footprint on all available platforms will become a must for all political parties. But reaching out to the voters who are not on any platform will be a big challenge for all parties. Thousands of crores of rupees are spent on physical campaigning, so it can be expected that the expenditure may come down drastically because of the switch over to the online mode.
Ahead of the polls, the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh rolled out fresh curbs to contain the spread of COVID infection in the state. Night curfews, a cap on wedding guests, and restaurant capacity are some of the restrictions announced by the Uttar Pradesh government.
Ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, various political parties are targeting different sections of people. The ruling BJP is eyeing to bank on the saffron votes like last time while Congress, according to political observers, is holding back its roots on a firm coalition of Muslims-Dalits-Brahmins vote in the 2022 UP Election polls.
Earlier, UP CM Yogi Adityanath termed the Congress leaders as ‘accidental Hindus’ while Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Maurya has termed them as ‘electoral Hindus’. “It is during the election that these leaders become a Hindu (‘unhe chunaav me hi mandir aur Amethi ki yaad aati hai‘),” Maurya said while addressing a meeting in Amethi on January 3.
In 2007, the Muslim community voted largely for the Bahujan Samaj Party, in 2012 it was with the Samajwadi Party but in 2017 it got divided between the SP, Congress, and the BSP. Independent analyst Rahul Varma said, “The Samajwadi Party has been getting a majority of the votes from the Muslims in UP. The 2022 assembly election is likely to become bipolar, ie, the main competition will be limited to BJP-led and SP-led alliances with other players including the BSP being reduced to the margins. “It won’t be surprising if the SP gets more than 75 per cent of Muslim votes. In my view, both AIMIM or the Peace Party will have a marginal presence among Muslims,” Rahul Varma was quoted as saying by news agency IANS
The Muslims are considered to be the second-largest religious bloc and rough estimates are that their population is 20 percent but in the 2017 elections the Muslims were divided and the BJP riding on Hindutva consolidation backed by social engineering swept the polls.
The Opposition in Uttar Pradesh has time and again targeted the BJP government at the Centre and state for price rise. Congress general secretary and chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said it’s an “opportunity for people to defeat the BJP and put an end to unemployment, price rise” in the upcoming polls in the five states including Uttar Pradesh. Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur, and Goa will also go to the polls in February.
Earlier, Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party staged protests across the state against inflation, rising fuel, and LPG gas prices, and unemployment. Samajwadi Party workers staged a protest against the rising prices of cooking gas outside the Uttar Pradesh Assembly building in Lucknow in October last year. Carrying cut-outs of LPG cylinders and black balloons, Samajwadi Party MLAs, MLCs, and other leaders took to the streets and raised anti-government slogans.
Meanwhile, BSP supremo Mayawati also slammed BJP government and said the public will not forget this easily. “The way prices of petrol and diesel have increased by a record high in last few days and the way inflation has increased in the country, the public will not forget this easily,” Mayawati said.
In the midst of the price rise row, Uttar Pradesh Minister Upendra Tiwari’s remark on fuel price hikes caught attention. “Only a handful of people use 4-wheelers and need petrol. 95% of people don’t need petrol. Over 100 cr vaccine doses were administered free of cost to people. If you compare (fuel price) to per capita income, prices are very low now,” Tiwari said.
With the Assembly elections not far away, many political parties and are trying to woo voters with freebies announcements even before their official manifestos are released. The trend began with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) announcing 300 units of free electricity if voted to power in Uttar Pradesh. The party said that all power arrears would be waived off and farmers would be given free electricity. The party also promised an employment guarantee and a larger budget for education.
Congress, on the other hand, is focussing on women’s power. The party, apart from promising 40 per cent reservation for women in the Assembly tickets has even released a women manifesto that promises smartphones and electric scooty for girls, an increase in pension for widows and elderly women, increase in honorarium for ASHA and Anganwadi workers and free bus travel for women in the state. Congress has also promised three free gas cylinders in a year for women.
The Rashtriya Lok Dal, which released its manifesto in October, has promised one crore jobs to the youth with 50 per cent representation to women in police to check the increasing number of crimes against women. “We have also resolved to fill all the vacant posts in police, education, and health departments within six months,” the manifesto says.
The RLD, if voted to power, has also promised to enhance the PM-Kisan Samman Nidhi amount from Rs 6,000 to Rs 12,000 and Rs 15,000 for small farmers. The party further promises to increase MSP for main crops and ensure MSP for farmers.
The Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party Lohia (PSPL), headed by Shivpal Singh Yadav, has promised a job for one daughter and one son in a family. He also promised Rs five lakh each for every unemployed graduate.
With Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath promoting law and order as one of the key achievements of his government in the state, the crime factor is likely to play a major role in the 2022 UP elections. Law and order, political observers say, may play a significant factor to determine voting patterns in the state.
National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data showed Uttar Pradesh reported the highest number of crimes committed against women with 49,385 cases. However, a series of crimes in Uttar Pradesh saw a decline in Yogi Adityanath’s tenure. Rape cases in Uttar Pradesh saw a decline of 43 per cent while cases of murder saw a drop in 23 per cent during Adityanath’s tenure, the NCRB data stated.
Earlier, the Opposition parties took a dig at the Yogi Adityanath government to encounter cases in the state. However, CM Yogi Adityanath hit back saying stable law and order in Uttar Pradesh has helped the state emerge as one of the favourite investment destinations. “UP also improved its ease of doing business rank from 14th four years ago to 2nd in 2021. Stable law and order in the state now has helped us gain the confidence of industrialists and investors which is why UP has emerged as one of the favorite investment destinations,” UP CM Yogi Adityanath said.
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