Of the 37 seats won by the SP, its margin of victory over the NDA counterpart in 18 seats was lower than the total number of votes secured by the BSP candidate in the fray — excluding seats reserved for SCs since each party has to field a member from the community in these seats, leaving little room for caste permutations and combinations.
In 10 of these 18, BSP fielded upper caste and OBC candidates — Brahmins in five, and a Thakur, Kayastha, Kurmi, Prajapati and Patel in the remaining five – which may have led to a division of votes within these communities. These 10 seats were Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Kheri, Dhaurahra, Sultanpur, Pratapgarh, Hamirpur, Banda, Fatehpur and Basti.
In the remaining eight, BSP fielded Muslims. These were Sambhal, Firozabad, Etah, Badaun, Aonla, Ambedkar Nagar, Shrawasti and Sant Kabir Nagar.
Writing in The Hindu as part of a series on CSDS-Lokniti post-poll survey, analysts Mirza Asmer Beg, Shashikant Pandey and Akhilesh Pal noted that while upper caste voters largely favoured BJP this election, Muslim vote consolidated behind candidates of the INDIA bloc.
Hence, while BSP candidates in most of these 10 seats may have cut into BJP’s votes — possibly even harming the latter’s prospects — in the remaining 8, SP registered a win despite BSP fielding a Muslim candidate. This suggests that the BSP candidate could not muster enough support from Muslims and other communities to ensure a loss for the SP.
There were, however, at least seven seats where the SP’s winning margin was higher than the total votes polled by the BSP, suggesting that the SP would have won even if the BSP candidate was not in the fray. These seats are Moradabad, Rampur, Mainpuri, Kannauj, Kaushambi, Ayodhya and Robertsganj.
In these seven seats, excluding the two reserved seats of Roberstganj and Kaushambi, the BSP had fielded Muslim candidates in Moradabad, Rampur and Kannauj, a Yadav in Mainpuri and a Brahmin in Ayodhya, suggesting that BSP candidate may have dented the INDIA bloc on three of these seats and the NDA in one.
Speaking to ThePrint, political analysts said the charge that BSP cuts into the votes of a particular party or alliance did not hold much water.
“When people are voting for three different candidates, it is not necessary that the BSP will cut votes of only one particular party. Had the BSP’s Muslim candidates got more votes than the SP, the argument could be considered but this is clearly not happening. So, this allegation seems to be absurd,” Mirza Asmer Beg told ThePrint.
Beg added that findings of the CSDS-Lokniti post-poll survey show that Muslim voters have shown “huge consolidation towards INDIA bloc”.
“While almost 92 percent Muslims voted for SP, about 87-88 per cent upper castes voted for NDA. So, it would be wrong to say that BSP helped a particular party because it works both ways. While BSP may of course be cutting into a section of votes of SP, BSP can also say the same for rivals. BSP has been a significant player winning a fair share of votes.”
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How BSP may have cut into BJP votes
On the other hand, of the total 33 seats the BJP won in Uttar Pradesh, in at least 10 the margin of victory over the INDIA bloc counterpart was lower than the total number of votes secured by the BSP candidate in the fray — excluding eight reserved seats won by BJP.
An analysis by ThePrint shows that in these 10 seats, BSP fielded five Brahmins, a Muslim, a Yadav, a Tyagi, a Kushwaha and a Pal.
While BSP’s Muslim candidate Mujahid Husain in Amroha suited BJP since he was expected to cut into the votes of Congress’s Danish Ali, it fielded a Yadav candidate in Deoria where BJP’s Shashank Mani Tripathi registered a win over Akhilesh Pratap Singh of the Congress.
Muslims and Yadavs have traditionally voted for the Samajwadi Party, which was in a pre-poll alliance with the Congress this time.
The BSP fielded a Tyagi candidate in Meerut sensing disgruntlement within the community with the BJP over the Shrikant Tyagi issue. A prominent face of the community, Tyagi was arrested last August for allegedly assaulting a neighbour in Noida.
In Aligarh, Fatehpur Sikri, Unnao, Farrukhabad and Akbarpur, Brahmin candidates fielded by the BSP led to a likely division in Brahmin votes. Similarly, in Phulpur and Bhadohi, BSP fielded a Pal and a Kushwaha, respectively, enabling a possible division in OBC votes.
While Brahmins have traditionally voted for BJP, BSP had been hoping to consolidate Brahmin-Dalit-Muslim vote in its favour to repeat its 2007 performance which propelled it to power in the state with a majority.
In at least 14 seats, the winning margin of BJP candidates was much bigger than the total number of votes secured by the BSP candidate, suggesting that even in the absence of a BSP candidate, BJP candidate would have won these seats. These were Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Mathura, Pilibhit, Lucknow, Jhansi, Kaiserganj, Gonda, Domariyaganj, Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Kanpur and Varanasi. Bareilly was an exception since the BSP candidate was not in the fray on account of the cancellation of his nomination.
In these 14 seats, the BSP fielded three Thakurs, one Jat, a Kushwaha, two Brahmins and an OBC along with six Muslims.
While the BSP candidate may have dented the prospects of the INDIA bloc on six of these seats (Pilibhit, Lucknow, Domariyaganj, Maharajganj, Gorakhpur and Varanasi), BSP candidates may have at the same time dented the prospects of the BJP in Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Mathura, Jhansi, Kaiserganj, Gonda, Kushinagar and Kanpur.
Shashikant Pandey said while claims that BSP candidates helped BJP win may hold true for some seats, it is not plausible that a party would toy with its existence or extend help to another party at its own expense.
“If BSP only wants to help BJP why doesn’t it form a pre-poll alliance with the party? If there are several seats where the Opposition feels BSP helped BJP, there are several others where it is the other way around and BJP can say that it helped SP,” Pandey told ThePrint.
He added that “analysis has shown that OBC and SC vote shifted to INDIA bloc this time because of SP’s smart ticket distribution and other reasons like anger within the Dalit community”.
“Some BSP candidates may have their personal vote share so they may take away a sizeable number of votes in a particular constituency,” he underlined.
How BSP may have cut into Congress votes
Meanwhile, of the six seats the Congress won, it won from Saharanpur and Sitapur despite BSP fielding a Muslim and a Yadav candidate, respectively. On both seats, the winning margin was lower than the total number of votes secured by the BSP candidates.
In Rae Bareli, the BSP fielded a Yadav candidate unlike in 2019 and 2014 when it refrained from fielding a candidate against the sitting MP — Congress president Sonia Gandhi — out of respect. But its choice of candidate did not play spoilsport for Congress leader Rahul Gandhi who registered a win in Rae Bareli with a massive margin of 3.9 lakh votes.
Unlike the three seats mentioned above, Congress candidates in Amethi, Allahabad and Barabanki (SC) won with a margin greater than the total number of votes polled by BSP in those seats, suggesting that even if BSP had not fielded a candidate, the Congress would have still won these seats.
In two of these seats, the BSP fielded OBC candidates who could have hurt the NDA’s prospects. Hence, while the BSP candidates may have hurt the NDA’s prospects in 31 seats in all, they may have dented the prospects of the INDIA bloc in 23 seats.
Experts noted that the traditional BSP vote base comprising Jatavs and non-Jatav voters along with some OBCs, shifted to INDIA bloc this time.
“It is expected that in future too, SP and Congress would try to woo away these communities in the backdrop of BSP’s declining vote share,” said Pandey.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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