New Delhi: The Samajwadi Party is leading in eight of the 17 SC reserved constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, while Chandrashekhar Azad is ahead in Nagina by a margin of over 64,000 votes as of 12.30 pm, according to Election Commission data.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which held two of the reserved seats — Nagina and Lalganj — seems to be drawing a blank. Meanwhile, the BJP, which had swept 15 of these 17 seats in 2019, has been reduced to seven, according to the early trends. A Congress candidate is leading in one seat.
The numbers spell a major disruption in UP’s Dalit politics.
To begin with, early trends across the reserved constituencies suggest that the Samajwadi Party’s attempt to expand from its core Muslim-Yadav (MY) base to the Pichde-Dalit-Alpsankhyak (PDA) seems to have struck a chord. The SP had won zero seats in the SC reserved constituencies in the last Lok Sabha elections, and the party itself was seen as being an anathema to Dalits.
However, experts say the fear of the Constitution being under threat if the BJP wins a resounding majority has created a stir among Dalits, who simultaneously seem to have moved away from the BSP.
The BSP, which won 10 seats in the last Lok Sabha election when it was in an alliance with the SP, and secured a vote share of 19 percent, has arguably received a fatal blow this election, with its vote share having dipped to 9 percent, according to early trends. With the BSP receding from UP’s Dalit politics, Chandrashekhar Azad could emerge as its new face.
“The BSP has been in a perennial decline,” said Rahul Verma, fellow at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR). “It has been ideologically and organisationally failing since 2012, and this could make the party’s resurrection near-impossible.”
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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