The no-holds-barred battle for Uttar Pradesh, said to be the semi-final before the general elections in 2024, kicked off in the right earnest on Thursday.
In the first phase, in the 58 seats in 11 districts, over 60 per cent votes were polled. Despite the extension of polling time by an hour the voting percentage could not surpass that in the previous assembly election of 2017. Possibly, in certain areas, the turnout was impacted by reports of electronic voting machines developing glitches.
“Hawa paschim se chalti hai!’’ Union Minister and BJP leader Sanjiv Balyan and a prominent Jat face from western UP had said so in an interview once.
However, the turnout this time does not seem to suggest a discernible trend.
PM Modi had asserted on Wednesday that the state will witness a pro-incumbency sentiment. Conventional wisdom has it that higher turnout means anti-incumbency and lower turnout indicates pro-incumbency. However, data gleaned from the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies shows that there is no thumb rule and the converse may be true.
According to the election commission, more than 60.17 per cent votes were polled on Thursday. However, the final figures would be released by the commission on Friday morning after receiving data from all polling stations. In the 2017 assembly elections, 64.22 per cent votes were polled in the first phase in 73 seats of 15 districts.
EC officials said that voting was poor in urban pockets of Noida, Agra and Mathura, while in the rural areas of Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Shamli and Bulandshaher the turnout was large. In Muzaffarnagar, 62.14 percent votes were polled by 5 pm, while in Noida district it was 54.77 per cent only. In the Noida city seat, just 48 per cent voters took the trouble to cast their votes. Till the last report trickled in, 65.16 per cents votes were polled in Bulandshaher and 65.39% in Meerut. In rural assembly seats of Kithaur in Meerut district, 70.13 per cent votes were polled, while in the urban seat of Cantt it was 61.08%.
As per the data, maximum votes were polled in the much talked about assembly seat of Kairana, while the turnout was lowest in Sahibabad pocket of Ghaziabad district.
According to political observers, unlike in 2017 elections, which witnessed a triangular contest, with the BJP, the BSP and the Congress-SP alliance in the fray, the contest this times appears to have been bipolar and a direct fight between the ruling BJP and the Samajwadi Party-RLD alliance.
The state has witnessed 16 assembly elections since 1951, of which eight reported higher turnouts. Of these, the incumbent was re-elected only in 1957; on other occasions, they lost. On the other hand, there were seven elections when voter turnouts dropped. In 1980, the incumbent got re-elected despite a poor turnout. Assembly elections, on average, have witnessed higher participation than parliamentary polls.
One reason why the BJP did well in western UP was polarisation that followed communal riots in the region in 2014 and the subsequent Jat-Muslim divide. However, this time, with the RLD and SP coming together, the warring communities are said to be united and are backing the SP-RLD ‘gathbandhan'. The farmers’ agitation is said to have rekindled the communal harmony in the region.
So, if ‘West’ favours the anti-BJP forces, will the other parts, especially the eastern belt, go with the flow? With six more phases to come, one will have to wait and watch whether the main contenders will be able to sustain the momentum.
