Image source, ANI
Before the 2027 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, one thing has now become clear that the electoral contest in the state will not be limited to just two poles.
While the Bharatiya Janata Party led NDA and the Samajwadi Party-Congress India alliance will face each other, now a new political front has also entered the fray. The name is 'Social Change Front'.
Last Thursday, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi and Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) President Chandrashekhar Azad announced this alliance in Lucknow.
Owaisi has also declared Chandrashekhar Azad as the chief ministerial face of the alliance. Also, both the parties will jointly contest elections on all 403 assembly seats of UP.
According to Chandrashekhar Azad, at present there are two parties in this alliance, but the possibility of other parties joining in the future cannot be ruled out.
He has also invited Samajwadi Party and Congress to come together. But the chances of both parties accepting this invitation seem slim to none.
For now, if we look at the alliance of these two parties, then both of them do politics of such communities, whose share in the population of Uttar Pradesh is about 40 percent.
On one hand, Owaisi has been trying to establish his political hold among the Muslim voters, while on the other hand, Chandrashekhar Azad is trying to strengthen his place in Dalit politics.
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At the same time, Samajwadi Party and Congress also claim to raise the voice of PDA (whose form has changed many times but is basically known as backward, Dalit and minority).
A large section of Dalit and Muslim voters are already considered inclined towards them. Old election results also indicate this.
In this situation, questions are being raised whether the aim of this new alliance, which has entered the field with the resolve to defeat BJP, is to weaken the BJP or the India alliance?
Senior journalist Suman Gupta says that this alliance is not going to cause any loss to BJP. If there will be loss then other parties who have entered the fray to defeat Congress, SP and BJP will suffer.
He said, "Now everyone understands that the role of Owaisi and Chandrashekhar is to cut votes in the elections."
When a joint press conference of Azad Samaj Party and AIMIM was held in Lucknow, a district president of Chandrashekhar's party expressed concern that he did not find the party going with Owaisi to be a right step.
His argument was, "Till now people only saw Owaisi as the B-team of BJP, after this alliance our party will also be called B-team."
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Ravikant Chandan, Associate Professor of Hindi at Lucknow University, who has joined the Congress, sees this alliance from this perspective.
He says that behind promoting Chandrashekhar Azad, there could also be an attempt to weaken the growing association of Dalits with Rahul Gandhi.
Ravikant Chandan says, "Rahul Gandhi talked about saving the Constitution in the last elections. Dr. Ambedkar and the process of constitution making came forward. He reached the spot of incidents of atrocities on Dalits. Went to meet family in Hathras. He invites Dalits to his home and eats food with them. Due to this, a part of the Dalit community is joining them.
He believes that not only Chandrashekhar but also Congress is getting the benefit of weakening of Mayawati's politics.
He says that Chandrashekhar's influence is currently limited to a section of Dalit youth, whereas Congress is trying to reach out to the broader social base of Dalits.
According to Ravikant Chandan, "A large part of non-Jatav Dalits had gone with the India alliance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Signs of distance from BJP were also seen in communities like Pasi, Kori and Dhobi.
What do the figures say?
Image source: Congress Social Handle
The share of Muslims in the population of Uttar Pradesh is about 19 percent and the population of Scheduled Castes is about 21 percent. In this way, both the communities together constitute about 40 percent of the state's population.
According to the post-poll survey of CSDS-Lokniti in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, about 92 percent of Muslim voters in Uttar Pradesh voted for the India Alliance. At the same time, 56 percent non-Jatav Dalit voters also supported the Indian alliance.
However, the picture of Jatav voters was slightly different. Of these, 44 percent voted for the Bahujan Samaj Party, while 25 percent went with the Indian Alliance and 24 percent with the NDA.
That is, while the non-Jatav Dalits were more inclined towards the India Alliance, Mayawati's party still had a strong hold among the Jatav voters. Chandrashekhar himself comes from Jatav community.
Political analysts believe that he has a certain degree of acceptance among the aggressive youth of the Jatav community.
Earlier, according to the post-poll survey of CSDS-Lokniti in the 2022 assembly elections, about 79 percent of Muslim voters had voted for the Samajwadi Party-led alliance.
Among Dalit voters, about 50 percent supported BSP and 14 percent supported SP alliance. BJP alliance got about 28 percent Dalit votes.
How has been the electoral performance of both the parties?
Now if we look at the election performance so far, we can understand the political strength of both the parties and their limitations.
In the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, AIMIM had fielded candidates on 95 seats. The party got a total of more than 4.50 lakh votes, but it could not win even a single seat. Its total vote share in the state was around 0.49 percent.
The performance of Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) was also not very impressive. The party contested elections on more than 100 seats and its vote share was around 0.13 percent.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Chandrashekhar Azad won from Nagina seat. He defeated BJP's Om Kumar by a margin of more than one lakh votes.
His party contested elections on four Lok Sabha seats of Uttar Pradesh and secured around six lakh votes.
This shows that Chandrashekhar's political presence has increased compared to 2022 but how influential his party will be is two different things.
The same question arises in the case of AIMIM. The party's statewide vote share may have been low, but the votes received by its candidates in some assembly constituencies can be important in terms of election results.
Owaisi had spoiled SP's game on these seats.
For example, Suman Gupta gives the example of Dumariyaganj assembly seat.
She says, "In 2022, Samajwadi Party's Syeda Khatoon defeated BJP's Raghavendra Pratap Singh by just 771 votes." AIMIM candidate Irfan Ahmed Malik got 4,352 votes. That means the votes received by the AIMIM candidate were more than five times the margin of victory and defeat.
Not only this, there were many seats where the votes received by AIMIM candidates were more than the margin of victory and defeat.
For example, SP lost the Barabanki Kursi seat by 217 votes, while AIMIM got 8,541 votes.
The margin of defeat in Nakur seat of Saharanpur was 315 votes and AIMIM got 3,593 votes.
In Moradabad Nagar, SP lost by 782 votes, while the AIMIM candidate got 2,661 votes.
In Shahganj seat of Jaunpur, SP candidate lost by 719 votes and AIMIM got 8,128 votes.
SP's defeat margin in Sultanpur was 1,009 votes, while AIMIM got 5,251 votes.
SP also lost in Aurai seat of Bhadohi by 1,647 votes and AIMIM candidate got 2,190 votes.
And most of these were those seats where Samajwadi Party and BJP were in direct competition.
In such a situation, AIMIM and Azad Samaj Party may not have been able to win even a single seat, but they definitely have the power to spoil the game of victory and defeat.
And to fight this power, it is necessary that not only Akhilesh-Rahul but other small influential parties also come together in the elections under the banner of India Alliance.
BJP has tried to reach out to different social groups by forming alliances with parties like Nishad Party and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party.
In such a situation, the Indian alliance will also be challenged as to how much it can broaden its social equation.
Difficulties for Akhilesh
Senior journalist Suman Gupta believes that it will not be easy for Samajwadi Party to bring along leaders like Owaisi, Chandrashekhar or Swami Prasad Maurya.
She says, "I don't think Samajwadi Party can be ready to bring together these parties like Owaisi, Chandrashekhar, Swami Prasad Maurya." Even if Congress wins, they will have to compromise on their seats and give them seats. And I don't think we will see this happening.
Ravikant Chandan says that voting in elections is not done only on the basis of caste identity. Many times local social equations and neighborhood politics also influence the voters' decisions.
According to him, BJP will try to ensure that the backward and Dalit voters who are moving away from it do not directly go with the India alliance. For this, efforts can be made to strengthen different political options.
But, he believes that till the end the contest will be direct between BJP and India alliance.
Published by Collective Newsroom for the BBC.
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