Originally Published 2017-01-23 07:05:27 Published on Jan 23, 2017
Triangular contests to make assembly elections 2017 a close call

Of the quintet of state elections (Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur) that begin on February 4, two will get disproportionate coverage. Elsewhere battle-lines are familiar, but in UP and Punjab traditional two-cornered contests have become triangular. They are that much more difficult to predict.

National parties are ahead in both states. Going by opinion polls and political assessments, the Congress is predicted to finish on top in Punjab and the BJP to win the most seats in UP. Yet, an absolute majority in either case is far from certain.

To understand the state of play, let us begin with Punjab. The Akali Dal-BJP alliance has been in office for two terms. A strong anti-incumbency sentiment has been apparent since at least 2014, when the ruling combine saw a huge negative vote swing, won only six of 13 Lok Sabha seats and made Punjabis the one set of urban voters in north India who resisted the Narendra Modi wave. This was despite Modi’s personal popularity and attributed to anger against both Akali ministers and BJP municipal authorities.

The surprise factor was AAP, which won four seats and 30% of the vote. The big loser appeared to be the Congress. It had failed in the 2012 assembly election, breaking a trend where the Akalis and the Congress exchanged positions every five years. Now, if the Congress was overtaken by a new party as well, the consequences could be incalculable.

Gradually, the Congress got its act together and AAP lost ground. Punjab has three political regions: Majha, Doaba and Malwa. AAP has a presence in largely the third. Even so, this region, Malwa, contributes 69 seats to an assembly of 117. It is where Punjab will be won and lost.

The Congress campaign is led by Amarinder Singh, a former chief minister, pushing 75 and near the end of his career. Despite Rahul Gandhi’s discomfort with Amarinder — a law unto himself in a party where usually only The Family lays down the law — the fact is the Congress has not been able to produce a younger leader of similar stature.

In the normal course, Amarinder would have been smelling an easy victory. Two aspects worry him. First, his party is not entirely behind him. By promoting alternatives such as Navjot Sidhu, simply not in Amarinder’s league as a pan-Punjab political figure, a rival faction is needling the would-be chief minister. Indeed, as some analysts point out, even Sidhu’s own election, from Amritsar East constituency, is far from guaranteed.

Amarinder’s second concern is AAP. The party is not as strong as it was in 2014. Some of its key candidates then have switched. Ophthalmologist Daljit Singh (80,000 votes in Amritsar) has joined the Congress; Jyoti Mann (2,50,000 votes in Jalandhar) has embraced the Akali Dal. However, if AAP makes a mark in Malwa it could stop a Congress majority.

The Akalis are hoping for AAP to do well enough to force a hung assembly but not well enough to come to power. If an AAP wave is perceived — opinion polls don’t forecast it so far — then it is possible that individual Akali chieftains could bolster Amarinder in a secret pact. The Akalis are confident of retaining a mainstream Sikh peasantry base vote but acknowledge some of the extreme religio-political support is shifting to AAP.

Move to UP. For close to 15 years now, assembly elections in the state have been contests between the SP and the BSP. National parties — the BJP in 2014, to a lesser degree the Congress in 2009 — have punched above their weight only in parliamentary elections.

This time, the BJP is very much in the reckoning. In part, this is a legacy of its 42% vote share in 2014.

It also reflects the sustained appeal of Narendra Modi (an MP from UP) and the organisational toning up by Amit Shah, who has sought to solidify an urban middle classes plus upper caste groups plus non-Yadav OBCs plus assorted youth combine.

When the poll season began, UP appeared to be a fight between the BJP and the BSP, which planned to add the Muslim vote to its 20% Dalit base. Numerically, this would make it formidable. The BSP was set to challenge the BJP as the SP, racked by anti-incumbency, went into civil war.

Now, there is greater clarity in the ruling SP. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav’s primacy has been established and he has reconciled with his father, Mulayam Singh Yadav. Some would argue the so-called conflict was a camouflage to make Akhilesh appear an agent of change. Both father and son have known all along that a division in the party’s Yadav base would have been catastrophic and left neither side a winner. It would have had the party’s other loyal constituency, Muslims, confused.

Akhilesh’s fightback plan is to secure the Yadav legacy as a blessing from his father, bolster credentials with Muslims, create a youth counter-narrative to Modi’s and, by projecting himself as a rebel against disreputable “uncles” and SP fixers, win over the incremental urban and upper caste voter who turned to Modi in 2014 and hasn’t looked away since. That the BJP doesn’t have a chief ministerial candidate would assist Akhilesh too.

Yet, there are three caveats here. One, is the Delhi media, which has adopted Akhilesh with gusto, underrating the BSP? Two, despite his strenuous efforts and repositioning exercise can Akhilesh wipe out all of the Modi surplus of 2014? This query is especially relevant as the Prime Minister and the BJP have a deep foundation in the towns of UP, a state with a 22% urban population (2011 census).

Finally, to what degree will demonetisation hurt or help the BJP — or in fact be relevant at all as the voter makes his or her choice? March 11 will reveal the picture.

This commentary was first published in The Economic Time.

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Arnaz Shaik

Arnaz Shaik

Arnaz Shaik Fellow The Antara Foundation

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