Uttar Pradesh’s ruling party seems to have received an ‘urban clap’.
New Delhi: The BJP appears to have succeeded in wooing the women voters with the help of law and order as its poll plank in UP Assembly elections. If a big chunk of women voters goes with the BJP, it will easily cross the majority mark.
At the same time, Samajwadi Party leaders claim on the basis of “mammoth crowd” at the rallies of Akhilesh Yadav that the results will be surprising. Now it is clear that the fight is between BJP and SP in Uttar Pradesh.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is contesting apparently to help BJP, while the Congress is trying to somehow win 15-20 seats and increase vote share. It is difficult to predict if the Congress will be able to win more seats than last time, but since it is contesting on 400 seats the party may increase its vote share.
Undoubtedly, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra struggled a lot on her own in the poll battle. If SP loses this time, then the Congress will have an opportunity to be in the fight in the next UP elections. However, the BSP will continue to be the same even if it performs miserably in the polls.
Meanwhile, the BJP’s strategy to seek votes on the issue of law and order seems to be working. The saffron party managed to create an impact in urban areas of Western UP. Observers are of the view that BJP will take lead in urban localities while the SP-RLD alliance will be ahead in rural areas. In the last two decades, Western UP has seen massive urbanization due to which influence of one particular caste has dwindled. Knowing well that the farmers are unhappy with the present dispensation, the BJP focused on urban regions with its law and order poll plank. But, the SP-RLD alliance remained focused on Jat and Muslim voters.
Significantly, Jats are learnt to have voted for the alliance only in the seat where the RLD candidate was in the fray. They did not go for SP candidates. If so, this does not augur well for the SP-RLD alliance. After the “success” of the law and order issue in the first and second phases, the BJP pushed it in the next two phases as well.
Before polling in SP bastions, the BJP also highlighted terrorism and dynasty politics. BJP’s leaders such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath targeted the SP over the issues of terrorism and dynasty politics. As a result of this, women and youth voters are said to have backed the BJP on these issues. However, the Congress is also hopeful of getting women votes. There are indications that BJP will raise Ram Mandir issue in a big way in the last phase of polls, with an eye on fence-sitters and women voters.