Polls 2017: Why UP, Punjab are set to be cliffhangers

Elections to the five Assemblies will be the first acid test for the ruling BJP after demonetisation, with the obvious advantages will be weighed against innumerable imponderables that make the polls a cliffhanger of an exercise, especially in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.

Soon after the elections were announced on Wednesday, the BJP’s UP unit president Keshav Maurya declared that his party would win “over 300 seats” in the 403-member Assembly. The BJP was also hard-pressed to deny that demonetisation had had any adverse impact on its electoral prospects.

“We have held 1,800 public meetings. There had been no violent incident. We were not even presented with a memorandum against demonetisation. If there was big disenchantment, we would have come to know, we have been in the field,” said BJP General Secretary Bhupendra Yadav. The BJP was, in fact, eager to point out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s initiative had found people’s support and further shifted popular sentiment in its favour.

This was contested by the other political parties, which believe than note ban had created a ripple against the BJP. The Congress and other significant players in UP, namely the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), have been vociferous in their anti-demonetisation campaign.

Clearly, note ban is one of the imponderables in the upcoming elections and if it finds political expression either way, it can influence the results in the most unexpected ways.

The second big factor that is certain to influence elections in UP is the ongoing feud in the SP. A poll survey released by ABP News-CSDS on Wednesday predicted that the ruling party would emerge as the single-largest entity with 141-151 seats and 30 per cent of the vote share. The BJP was shown getting lesser, at 129-139 seats. Significantly, the BJP’s vote share which had swelled to a staggering 42.63 per cent in the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, was seen slipping to 27 per cent, while the BSP was predicted to get 22 per cent of the vote share and between 93-103 seats.

The survey also named incumbent Akhilesh Yadav the most popular choice to be Chief Minister, BSP chief Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav. Another variable that has still to be counted is the possibility of an Akhilesh Yadav-led SP tying up with the Congress and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD). This not only consolidates the Muslim vote but also holds out an olive branch to the politically influential Jats in western UP who had overwhelmingly voted for the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections.

While the survey was conducted before the latest implosions in the SP and a Bihar-style Mahagathbandhan is not a scenario that has been firmed up, the possible fallout of the SP’s family feud may still be different from the obvious conclusion being currently derived that a split in the SP helps the BJP.

Logic and statistics dictate that a split in SP is clear advantage to the BJP because not only does it split the Muslim vote, which has overwhelmingly gone the SP way in the past, it also paves the way for the Yadavs to gravitate towards the BJP.

According to a CSDS survey, as compared to 6 per cent Yadavs who voted for the BJP in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, it attracted as much as 27 per cent of the Yadav vote in the 2014 election. So, confusion among the SP’s core voter in the event of a split in the party helps the BJP the most.

The second most exciting contest is in Punjab, where the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has emerged as a strong third alternative in the traditional Congress-versus-Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and BJP contest. These elections are crucial for the Congress to retain its centrality in national politics just as they are a do-or-die battle for the AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, who is being pushed to a corner in Delhi.

Kejriwal, who is spending considerable time in Punjab, has a lot riding in the State. Given his party’s performance in the 2014 elections, it is not surprising that AAP is focusing a lot of its organisational resources here. It won all its four Lok Sabha seats in Punjab and got a staggering 30.40 per cent of the popular vote at the peak of the “Modi wave” in the country.

At the same time, the Congress too put up a surprising fight in Punjab during the Lok Sabha polls, securing 33.10 per cent of the popular vote. Its chief campaigner and former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh even defeated BJP heavyweight Arun Jaitley from Amritsar.

Since then, the foregone conclusion in Punjab is that the SAD-BJP alliance has lost popular support, but there is a big question mark on who, among the Congress and the AAP, will emerge victorious. Now, while different opinion polls have variously predicted an AAP victory or a Congress lead, there is also a discussion on whether a split in the opposition vote may end up helping the ruling alliance.

In October, last year, a Huffington Post India and CVoter survey predicted a sweep for AAP with 100 seats in the 117-member Assembly. Around the same time, another opinion poll by India Today-Axis showed the Congress to be the single-largest party with 49-55 seats. The AAP would be a close second with 42-46 seats. More importantly, this poll showed Amarinder to be the most popular candidate to be CM with as many as 33 per cent showing a preference for the Congress veteran.

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