The state of play in Uttar Pradesh

Twenty-one of Uttar Pradesh’s 80 Lok Sabha constituencies have now voted. Ten of these seats saw polling on April 10 and covered “sensitive” Muzaffarnagar — where religious violence resulted in killings and internal displacement a few months ago — and neighbouring areas such as Aligarh, Saharanpur and Meerut. Here Hindu-Muslim relations have been fraught.

While officially banned, exit polls conducted by some political parties and media outlets suggest the Bharatiya Janata Party has done very well in the April 10 phase (when there was 65 per cent voter turnout). In the April 17 phase, voter turnout was lower than on April 10 (62 per cent), though higher when compared to 2009. Does this indicate religious polarisation affected voters — and voting percentages — more in the geography of the first phase? To that extent has the BJP surge been contained? That is certainly what the BJP’s opponents hope.

Is this hope justified? The answer is not easy; it is a complex “yes” and “no”. Uttar Pradesh is a massive state, extending from the doorstep of Delhi and the glitz of the National Capital Region to the border of Nepal and the grinding poverty at the edge of Bihar. With 200 million people and dialects of Hindi that change every few districts, it would be lazy and inaccurate to see Uttar Pradesh in terms of just one sweeping trend. Yes, the Narendra Modi factor is making its presence felt throughout the state — as it is in many parts of India — but the election is not just about a glib Modi and/or Hindu-Muslim equation.

Having travelled through a slice of Uttar Pradesh, a few conclusions can be drawn. First, this is a Hindu-Muslim election but not necessarily a Hindu versus Muslim election. If that sounds contradictory, it needs explanation. Hindu-Muslim antagonism and mobilisation on the basis of religious identity and — that four-letter word — hate is largely confined to Muzaffarnagar and its neighbouring districts. In that sense, the so-called “communal issue” has been limited.

However, across the state, Hindus and Muslims are undoubtedly thinking differently, especially in respect to the principal actor in this election: Mr Modi. To many groups and voters who happen to be Hindu, the BJP is an option this time. Economic and development concerns are ringing at least some bells. Fatigue with the Congress at the national level and disgust with the state government in Lucknow is making
Mr Modi a choice worth taking.

In particular young voters, for instance in communities such as Yadavs and Jats and some lower OBC groups who have usually gone along with the Samajwadi Party, are excited by the Modi narrative — the story of a tea-vendor’s son who has risen to become prime ministerial candidate. They see in his biography a parable for change, aspiration, upward mobility — and jobs. Some of the young people voting for Mr Modi come from traditionally non-BJP voting families. At least for the election of 2014, they are breaking with their parents.

Muslims are looking at Mr Modi very differently. His narrative and life story may have won him youth adherents across communities, but they are not breaking the wall separating the BJP from young Muslims. This is a hard fact; it is not a value judgment. Yet, it needs to be re-emphasised that the incremental help  Mr Modi is getting from voters who happen to be Hindus is not necessarily because these people want to hurt or destroy Muslims. Likewise, Muslims who are not going to vote for Mr Modi are not necessarily waiting to pick a knife and stab the closest Hindu. This is not the late 1980s or the early 1990s.

There are some caveats that need to be entered here. Early in its term, the SP government announced it would post two Muslims in every police station and generally ramp up Muslim presence in the police. This hasn’t happened simply because there are not enough Muslim policemen available, or available in the right locations. When the announcement was made, though, it caused a backlash — not among Hindus as a whole but among Yadavs, who were expecting to control police stations under an Akhilesh Yadav government.

This is one of the causes of Yadav youth’s disaffection with the SP. The Modi appeal has only added to it. As a result, the SP is making considerable effort to keep its young Yadav voters, who backed the party overwhelmingly in the state election of 2012, happy and prevent them from straying to the BJP. That aside, non-Yadav OBCs who may normally have supported the SP are wavering. This is a factor in Amethi, where the withdrawal of the SP from the race was meant to help Rahul Gandhi. Instead, it has led to a consolidation of some of the non-Yadav OBC voters of the SP behind the BJP. In central and eastern Uttar Pradesh, the BJP and Apna Dal tie-up has brought a chunk of Kurmis (also an OBC group) to the Modi corner.

How are Muslims voting? In the first phase — Muzaffarnagar and its periphery — Muslims appear to have voted for the Bahujan Samaj Party and “punished” the SP for the riots and the refugee mess. Nevertheless, despite initial predictions, Muslim alienation from the SP is not a pan-Uttar Pradesh phenomenon. In Poorvanchal, the eastern frontier of the state, Muslims are rallying behind the SP in what promises to be a pulsating SP-BJP battle. Fifteen constituencies here will vote on May 12, the final day of the election. Azamgarh, where Mulayam Singh Yadav is contesting from, and Varanasi, Mr Modi’s seat in Uttar Pradesh, will be part of that bruising last round.

Why are Muslims still with the SP? There are two reasons. First, the discontent following the Muzaffarnagar riots has been stemmed by time and by physical distance. Second, correctly or incorrectly Muslims feel a threat perception vis-à-vis the BJP but are conscious that a Modi-led government is a strong possibility in Delhi. As such, they are wary of turning their backs on and potentially destabilising a sympathetic state government.

This then is the state of play. Opinion polls and political assessments argue the BJP is getting the largest plurality of votes.

In a three or three-and-a-half (if one incorporates pockets of Congress influence) cornered contest, this could yield an exponential number of seats. We’ll know on May 16.