Why this poll season matters, in five charts
PremiumWhile all state elections generate interest, this polling season will be unique for more reasons than just being a so-called semi-final before the 2024 general elections. We explore why.
Over the next four weeks, five states in different parts of India will vote in keenly watched Assembly elections. Uttar Pradesh, the largest of them, starts voting this Thursday, in an election season that has at times been referred to as a semifinal before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Elections will also take place in Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur, with results due on 10 March. While state elections always generate interest, this polling season stands out for more reasons than just being a so-called preview for 2024. We explore why:
1. Yogi’s future
Linking this election season to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) 2024 prospects is a bit too simplistic. But indeed, Uttar Pradesh is politically influential, sending one in every seven Lok Sabha MPs, and will be in the spotlight over the coming weeks. In 2017, riding on Modi’s popularity, the BJP had defied the hardships of demonetization and unseated the Samajwadi Party with a 75% majority. Hindutva hardliner Yogi Adityanath, the surprise chief minister pick in 2017, has become popular in his own right—and polarizing—and the BJP’s “double-engine government" trope has worked.
Now he faces a tiring Modi support-base and a resurgent Opposition. A loss in the most populous state will be an embarrassment, with very few big state polls left before 2024 for the BJP to salvage pride. If Adityanath wins, it not only eases Modi’s path in national elections, but also lifts Adityanath’s stature as an heir apparent to Modi—a far bigger consequence for Indian politics.
2. Opposition unity
Punjab is a weak territory for the BJP after the fallout with long-time ally Shiromani Akali Dal. But in all other poll-bound states, the BJP is in power, either by itself or with alliance support. Back in 2017, two of these four—Goa and Manipur—had become the sites of the party’s earliest experiments with forming governments despite losing elections. In these five years, the BJP has continued successfully with that strategy of stitching victorious post-poll alliances, and has used it to earn a foothold in most parts of India.
But the failures are rising slowly, and the Opposition, for all its big talk of uniting against the BJP, isn’t filling the hole either. This year, a clutch of Opposition parties are up against a strong BJP in Goa. The small western state could become a test for Opposition unity ahead of 2024. If the need comes, can they bury their differences and come together to assert their commitment to oppose the BJP—as we saw in Maharashtra in 2019?
3. Farmers’ vote
For over a year, thousands of farmers, including from Punjab and western Uttar Pradesh, stationed themselves on the fringes of Delhi to protest against three controversial farm laws. The BJP’s defiance cost it an old ally, and the party was staring at the unfamiliar prospect of fighting it all alone in the Punjab polls. But a bigger trouble was brewing in Uttar Pradesh, where farmers’ rejection could have cost the party much more. In November 2021, Modi uncharacteristically withdrew the laws. Three months on, will the climbdown pay off?
Analysts doubt it will help. The farmers’ key demand, to get a legal guarantee of minimum support price for their crops, remains unfulfilled. The perception that the repeal was electorally driven is not lost to them. A failure to win the farmers’ vote in highly agrarian states will be an extra blow to the BJP, which is already reeling after a rare repeal in response to protests that its politicians often linked to terrorist activity.
4. Representation gambit
For the first time, a major national party has promised to earmark a good chunk of seats for women candidates in a state election. At face value, the Congress’ 40% quota in Uttar Pradesh may not boost women’s representation much given the party’s own weak footing. But it is a big step forward as there’s no resolution in sight for the long-pending women’s reservation bill in Parliament.
The 42 women MLAs that Uttar Pradesh got in 2017 was its best-ever showing, but it is an insignificant tally against the hundreds of men who crowd the House after every election. How the Congress’ effort pans out could help kickstart careers for new women politicians, and challenge other parties to follow suit in the future.
But the party has itself shied away from similar quotas in states where it has better chances of victory, such as Punjab. Each of the five states had elected very few women MLAs in 2017, and each would do well to get a representation boost.
5. The AAP factor
After winning two straight terms in Delhi, the nine-year-old Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is now eyeing four of the five upcoming elections, with decent chances in Punjab, Goa, and Uttarakhand. The AAP has come a long way since its street-smart beginnings, and the common slogan for all its campaigns reflects that: "the Delhi model of development", focusing on health, education, water, electricity, and financial independence for women.
In 2017, the party went into the Punjab elections with a lot of excitement, but won just 20 of 117 seats. In 2019 Lok Sabha, the state gave the party its only MP. The party appears to be regaining ground now, and its stakes in Punjab as the main Opposition are high as the Congress undergoes a drastic leadership crisis.
If AAP performs well, not only in Punjab but elsewhere too, it will give it much-needed electoral strength beyond Delhi, steadily emerging as the most successful political start-up in such a short period of time.
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