The Seven Phase Fight for Uttar Pradesh: Phase 3 & 4

The two phases have an interesting mix of seats including some dynastic pocket boroughs where the battleground is turning into a prestige issue for several candidates and their families.

The first part of this series covered phases one and two of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election 2022 where a total of 113 seats falling in western UP went to the polls. The incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was in direct contest with the Samajwadi Party (SP)- Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) alliance on most of these seats.

In the third and fourth phases of the elections due to be held on February 20th and 23rd, parts of western UP, Bundelkhand and central UP or Braj region will go to polls. Issues such as rising prices, surplus agricultural output, inability to sell the produce at appropriate prices and lack of jobs are at the top of the electorate’s concerns. Accusations of polarisation politics and appeasement are also a common trope. The two phases have an interesting mix of seats including some dynastic pocket boroughs where the battleground is turning into a prestige issue for several candidates and their families. The phases are also important with controversies surrounding the Unnao rape case and the Lakhimpur Kheri incident likely to impact voter preference in surrounding seats.

Phase 3: A High Profile Battle

The third phase of the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election will witness keen contest in fifty-nine assembly seats that go to polls. These seats are spread across sixteen districts in western and central UP. In the previous polls in 2017, BJP won forty-nine seats, leaving the SP with eight while the Indian National Congress (INC) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) managed to secure one seat each. In 2012, SP emerged victorious on thirty-seven seats and went on to form the government in the state. The BSP, which was an outgoing power that year, secured victory on just ten seats leaving the BJP with eight and the Congress with three.

Karhal, Mainpuri and Jaswantnagar Assembly constituencies are some of the seats presenting an interesting contest in this phase. With the SP CM candidate Akhilesh Yadav in the electoral fray from the Karhal Assembly constituency, phase three is crucial for the SP’s comeback in the state.

A Prestige Battle for Karhal

All eyes will be on this seat which is a part of Mainpuri Lok Sabha Constituency. The Lok Sabha seat is an SP stronghold with party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav as the incumbent MP. The Karhal Assembly seat has been represented by Sobaran Singh Yadav of SP since 2007. In 2012 and 2017, Singh won the seat with a vote share of 49.80 per cent and 46.9 per cent respectively. In the 2012 elections, while BSP came second with 31.22 per cent votes, in 2017, the BJP secured the second position with its candidate Rama Shakya securing 31.45 per cent of the votes. This time, while the Congress has fielded Gyanvati Yadav against Akhilesh, Mayawati-led BSP fielded first-timer Kuldeep Narayan.

Karhal has over 1.44 lakh Yadav voters and is considered ‘safe’ for the Samajwadi leadership. What makes the seat further interesting is that this is the first time Akhilesh Yadav will be contesting the Assembly election in the state. Making the battle even more intense, BJP has fielded Mulayam’s former PSO SP Singh Baghel to take on Akhilesh. Baghel started his political career from the SP and was elected thrice as an MP from the Jalesar Lok Sabha seat on an SP ticket before moving to the BSP. He switched over to the BJP before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. In the 2017 Assembly election, he was elected MLA from Tundla on a BJP ticket and was a Cabinet minister in the Yogi Adiyanath government till 2019. He fought the 2019 Lok Sabha election from the reserved Agra seat and is presently serving as a minister of state for Law and Justice in the Modi cabinet.

Will the SP Continue its Winning Streak from Jaswantnagar?

Jaswantnagar Assembly constituency, a part of Etawah district, is another SP stronghold going to the polls in phase three. Mulayam Singh Yadav has won this seat seven times in the past. His younger brother Shivpal Singh Yadav has been an MLA from Jaswantnagar for five consecutive terms and was reelected in 2012 & 2017 with a whopping 61.90 per cent and 54.73 per cent votes respectively.

This time, the SP has given its symbol to Shivpal, the one-time estranged uncle of Akhilesh with whom he has for now buried the hatchet. According to most political observers, the seat is likely to be a cake walk for the incumbent lawmaker.

On the other hand, the BJP has decided to field a new candidate, Vivek Shakya. Shakya has no political background but according to many is a well-known face in the Jaswantnagar constituency and may present some challenge to the incumbent Shivpal. He is also likely to benefit from his father, Manoj Shakya’s image as a social worker of Etawah district. The INC withdrew its candidates from both Karhal and Jaswantnagar constituencies, allegedly an act of support for the SP’s fight against the BJP and for the candidates from the first family of SP.

Mainpuri’s Allegiance to the SP and its First Family?

In 2019, out of the 14 parliamentary constituencies that come under this phase, BJP managed to sweep 13 with the lone exception of Mainpuri. Mulayam Singh Yadav was elected MP from here, a seat that has been an SP stronghold since the 1996 Lok Sabha election. The sole victory was a clear reflection of the party’s clout in a seat which the SP has never lost. In 2017, Raju Yadav of SP won the elections from the Mainpuri Assembly constituency by defeating Ashok Kumar from Bharatiya Janata Party by a narrow margin of 8,831 votes. In 2012, Raju won the seat with a vote share of 32.94 per cent. Come election day, the incumbent MLA from the SP will face a contest from Vineeta Shakya of the INC and Jaiveer Singh of the BJP.

Phase 4: Will the BJP Repeat its 2017 Victory?

Fifty-nine Assembly segments across nine districts will go to the polls on 23rd February 2022 in the fourth phase of the UP Assembly election. These segments correspond to nine Lok Sabha constituencies, including capital city Lucknow, and INC stronghold Rae Bareli apart from Unnao which received much infamy for the botched up police action in a rape case against a BJP MLA. In 2017, the BJP won fifty out of fifty-nine seats, a significant jump from just four in 2012. The SP was reduced to just four seats in the previous election from a peak of thirty-nine seats in 2012.

In 2017, of these fifty-nine seats, sixteen were reserved for the Scheduled Caste (SC). Barring Mohanlalganj which was bagged by Ambrish Singh Pushkar of SP, the rest fifteen reserved seats were bagged by the BJP. Apart from its victory from the general seats, outstanding performance in the SC reserved seats signalled heightened support for the BJP amongst the SCs. In and around these constituencies, the SP carries the tag of being a ‘party of the SCs’. The Congress and the BSP won two seats each from this region in 2017, from three and twelve respectively in 2012.

BJP’s Battle to save its Image in Lakhimpur and Unnao

Several constituencies in this phase are presenting a tough battleground for the incumbent BJP. In the Lakhimpur Kheri Assembly constituency, the October 2021 incident is said to have alienated the farming community from the incumbent party. However, according to several reports, the farming community’s support is unlikely to transfer to the SP. There is considerable resentment with the SP primarily owing to its decision to waive off a Rs 2,000 crore interest amount payable by sugarcane mill owners to the cultivators. The party received flak from across the board for this decision under its government, in power from 2012–2017.

In the Unnao Assembly constituency, the BJP and its then MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar were in the crosshairs of major controversy as the former MLA was convicted on charges of rape and murder. Rubbing salt on the BJP’s wounded political image, the INC has given a ticket to the mother of the rape survivor from the constituency. Furthering the BJP’s troubles in the constituency, the INC candidate has pledged to inform her voter base of how harmful the BJP is to women. The rape case and subsequent mishandling by the police received much attention in the media providing considerable fodder to the opposition.

Former Congress Stronghold marred by Local Dynastic Politics

Rae Bareli is another high profile constituency going to the polls in this phase. INC party president Sonia Gandhi is the incumbent MP from Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat for several terms now. The Assembly constituency was also held by the INC until recently. Incumbent INC MLA Aditi Singh defected to the BJP in 2020 and will be contesting the seat on a BJP ticket this time. She is known to have considerable influence in the constituency which she inherited from her late father Akhilesh Singh. The INC has fielded Manish Singh Chauhan for the upcoming elections, who though is a long time Congress member, will have to work hard to wrestle the seat from the Singh family’s dominance.

The SP has given a ticket to RP Yadav while the BSP has fielded Mohammad Ashraf from this seat. In 2017, Aditi Singh won with 62.94 per cent votes defeating BSP’s Mhd Shahbaz Khan by a staggering margin of 43.74 per cent. The BJP candidate Anita Srivastava came third with 14.14 per cent votes. In 2012, Aditi’s father, Akhilesh Kumar Singh won on a Peace Party ticket defeating SP’s Ram Pratap Yadav.

SP’s ability to convert its 2017 Runner-up Seats into Victory this Time

In 2017, while the BJP took home a significant share of the seats going to polls in the third phase in 2022, SP emerged as the second strongest party with runner up candidates on thirty-one of the fifty-nine seats. The BSP and the Congress, on the other hand, managed to win just one seat each in 2017. However, the BSP showed promise on fifteen other seats with its candidates coming in second place. The Congress reflected similar confidence on just three seats. Clearly, the SP is emerging as the most formidable challenger to the BJP in phase three of 2022 UP Assembly election, with BSP and the Congress far behind the race in the phase which polls on 20th February.

Phase four, which polls on 23rd February has a similar trend to phase three. The BJP made a quantum jump from four seats in 2012 to winning fifty in 2017. The SP, which won four seats in 2017 is the closest to giving BJP a challenge with the second position on twenty-nine segments in the same election. The high profile nature of several seats going to polls in this phase coupled with the BJP’s troubles with incumbent MPs and MLAs embroiled in controversies, be it Sengar in Unnao or Teni in Lakhimpur Kheri, the opposition appears to have sufficient ammunition to dent the incumbent party’s prospects across the two phases.

Damini Mehta /New Delhi
Data visualization by Prakhar Yadav and Vaishali Ujlayan.
With inputs from Akhil Chirravuri and Muskan Dhawan, Interns at Polstrat.
From Polstrat, a non-partisan political consultancy which aims to shift the narrative of political discourse in the country from a problem-centric to a solutions-oriented approach.
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Polstrat is a political consultancy aiming to shift the narrative of political discourse in the country from a problem-centric to a solutions-oriented approach.