The 2022 Assembly elections marked the BJPs victory by a large margin in UP. BJP won 273 seats with its allies out of 403 in the 2022 Legislative Assembly elections and won over 40% of the vote share. The Samajwadi Party won 111 seats, a significant jump from the 47 seats it bagged in the 2017 assembly polls making it a recognised opposition party in state politics.
Yogi Adityanath became the Chief Minister of the state once again. It was the first time in the history of Uttar Pradesh that a Chief Minister got re-elected after serving a full consecutive term. Several factors helped the BJP to win the Assembly elections.
In the 2017 Assembly elections, BJP won 326 seats, more than in the 2022 Assembly elections, but the party’s vote share increased by 2% this time.
Comparison To The 2017 Legislative Assembly Elections
Although BJP lost its seats in the eastern (especially the Purvanchal area) and central parts, it was able to win seats in the other parts of the state. The Hindu community in Uttar Pradesh forms approximately 79.7% of the total population.
On the other hand, the Muslim community accounts for 19.26% of the total population.
The eastern and central parts of the state had some opposition to the BJP. Every region of UP has a Muslim population, but the north-western part is high in the Muslim population.
Some parts in the north-western situated Rohilkhand (which has more than 30% of Muslim population) saw a split of Muslim votes between SP and BSP. This time both SP and BSP were there, and a large shift of Muslim votes from BSP to SP was seen.
The Dalit vote of BSP also shrank and went to BJP. In a large and complex state like Uttar Pradesh, there is a lot of regional variation. The BJP won 30 seats in the Western Uttar Pradesh (where farmer agitation was most powerfully organised) and the SP won nine seats from the BJP, but BJP managed to hold 28 of its seats in the 2017 Assembly elections.
It is said that in the rural area where farmer agitation was very strong, BJP lost a significant number of seats which it won in the 2017 elections, but it won votes in the urban areas. The only region where BJP was seen losing its seats was in the Purvanchal area, which lies in Eastern Uttar Pradesh.
The SP won 44 seats in the Purvanchal area, whereas the BJP won 36 seats. The SP won 21 seats from the BJP (which it won in the 2017 elections) and 11 seats from the BSP. In the Bundelkhand area, there is no major change; similar to the 2017 elections, BJP swept the region but lost only 2 of its seats.
In the Northeastern region of the state, which is also the home to the Chief Minister’s constituency (Gorakhpur), the party won 51 seats. It was able to grab the seats of SP and other regional parties, taking more seats than it did back in the 2017 elections.
In the Bundelkhand area, the BJP, similar to the 2017 elections, was able to sweep the area losing only two seats to the SP. In the Doab region, the BJP-led alliance was able to secure 56 seats, unlike the 2017 elections, where it got nine seats.
BJPs Vote Bank
In 2017 BJP got 83% Brahmin votes, but in the 2022 elections, 89% of the Brahmin votes were secured by the BJP. BJP was also able to increase its Rajput votes from 70% in the 2017 elections to 87% in the 2022 elections.
Yogi Adityanath, who fights from Gorakhpur, is an upper-caste (Rajput) and this was one of the reasons why the BJP was able to get a large chunk of the Rajput votes.
Even among the castes like Vaishya and the other upper-caste, BJP was able to increase its vote bank since the last 2017 elections. The total votes in the upper caste that the BJP was to win was 18% of the total population.
They also managed to get votes from the other castes as well. The Other Backward Castes or the OBCs are 42% of the state’s population and the BJP is a major part of this caste.
The opposition party, mainly the SP led by Akhilesh Yadav, gave tough competition to the BJP. One of the attempts that the SP made to get votes was to make a narrative that the BJP was not supporting the OBCs, and in this attempt, they were also able to take three OBC leaders from the BJP.
The vote bank that the SP tried to get votes from was the Muslim and Yadav community, but unfortunately, the party was not able to get enough votes from the other communities. BJP, on the other hand, was able to win 47% of the Jat votes and 42% of the non-Yadav OBC votes.
The other party, which was once a powerful party in the state, namely the BSP, remained inactive this time. The party leader, Mayawati, did not conduct many rallies and remained inactive, which made the voters lose their faith in the party.
BJP was also able to get a great number of votes from the Jatav communities (lower caste community), which earlier was a major vote bank of the BSP.
The Congress party, which once was a popular party, even though it brought in quite good ideas like reserving its party tickets for the women, was unfortunately able to win only two seats. SP, on the other hand, had performed well in these elections as compared to the 2017 Assembly elections.
Many incidents took place in the state of Uttar Pradesh, like the Hathras rape case, Lakhimpur violence and many others. The opposition parties, like the Congress or the Samajwadi Party, did not lead any major protests against the government; instead, the common public played the role of the opposition.
However, the BJP was able to keep issues in control; for instance, the farm laws, which were criticised internationally and got the farmers agitated, were repealed by the Modi government before the elections and even though the agitation was assumed to bring a great loss of votes to the BJP, it did not work, and the BJP was able to get votes in the western UP.
The SP, on the other hand, was not able to convince the voters of the Congress and BSP to vote for them; instead, their major vote bank shifted towards the BJP.
Although they did not get Muslim votes which were around 19% of the population, BJP was able to win most of the votes from the 80% population of Hindus. It also increased its share in the Jatav votes (which previously was of the BSP). The strategy seen in these elections was that of capturing the upper caste votes, the non-Yadav OBC and Jatav votes.
Reasons For BJPs Win
There were many factors responsible for BJPs win in the state Assembly elections. The narrative of the “double-engine model”, with Modi at the centre and Adityanath Yogi at the state, was pitched well. CM Adityanath Yogi was able to win this election because of his charisma as well.
Both Modi and Yogi’s charisma worked in favour of getting votes in the state. BJP had a strong Chief Minister face, which led them to victory. The claims of improvement of law and order made by the BJP worked well for them. The ruling party took strict actions against the criminals, which also earned the moniker of “Bulldozer Baba” to Yogi Adityanath.
The party was active all these 5 years. The party ran the Laabharthi Samapark Abhiyan, in which the party covered 1,25,000 booths. There were many schemes run by the government that benefitted a lot of people in the state.
Last December, the Uttar Pradesh government launched a mega scheme to distribute free rations. Not only grains but pulses and cooking oil.
The PM Kisan Nidhi and PM Ujjwala Yojna benefitted 3.9 crore people. The government also cut the electricity bill of the farmers by 50%.
The other section that BJP focused in the PM Ujjawala Yojna was the women, which gave free rations and toilets to every household (under the Below Poverty Line). It was seen that more women voters seemed to back the BJP than the men. The turnout of the men and women was 48% and 44%, respectively.
Under PM Awaaz Yojna, around 14.5 lakh people got homes, which aided BJP in getting Dalit votes. There were factors like religious polarisation as well that paved the way for the BJPs victory. The making of Kaashi Vishwanath, bigotry in the speeches of Saffron party leaders, the Ayodhya verdict, communal discord, and much more helped BJP to win.
Another important factor for the party’s win was the media coverage. The BJP did everything to be in the headlines. The tactics of media coverage of the party aided it in getting a major chunk of votes.