India’s biggest state goes to the polls

India’s biggest state goes to the polls

If it were a country, Uttar Pradesh (UP) would rank just ahead of Brazil in population, right next to Britain in land area and close to Lesotho in poverty. Measured by the complexity of its politics, though, India’s most populous state is second to none. With a plethora (अधिकता/प्रचुरता) of faiths, castes and political allegiances (राजनिष्ठा/वफादारी) , spiced up by garish (दिखावटी) nepotism (the practice among those with power or influence of favouring relatives or friends), rank criminality and a first-past-the-post voting system prone to wild swings, elections in UP are always raucous (गम्भीर/कर्कश) and notoriously tricky to predict.
Yet they are important. The state’s 140m voters directly elect a sixth of the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s parliament; those MPs include Narendra Modi, the prime minister, as well as Rahul Gandhi, a high-up in India’s main opposition party, Congress. The legislature that sits in the state capital, Lucknow, also appoints a substantial share of members in India’s upper house, the Rajya Sabha.
The landslide capture of 73 of UP’s 80 Lok Sabha seats is what clinched a sweeping majority for Mr Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2014 general election. But the opposition’s lingering hold on the state assembly, dating from local elections in 2012, helps thwart the BJP from gaining enough seats in the Rajya Sabha to pass laws as it likes.
Small wonder that most eyes are turned to UP, even though four smaller states (Goa, Manipur, Punjab and Uttarakhand) are also heading to the polls in the next few weeks, in a staggered series of elections whose final results will be announced together on March 11th. If the BJP can repeat its success of 2014, it bodes (संकेत करना) well for Mr Modi’s chances of securing another five-year term at the next national election in 2019. His longer-range ambition of controlling the Rajya Sabha would also draw closer, and with it the prospect of pursuing the less constrained Hindu-nationalist agenda that the BJP’s base craves.
A poor showing for the BJP, in contrast, could help lift its only nationwide rival, the once-powerful Congress, out of a prolonged tailspin. It could also provide a platform for either of two parties that are strong in the state, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), to gain influence in Delhi, India’s capital. Both have won state elections in the past. The BSP’s firebrand leader, Mayawati, pulled off a stunning triumph in 2007 by forging an alliance between her own, low-caste Dalits, who make up 21% of UP’s people, and the state’s Muslim minority, who account for a further 19%. But her frivolous (तुच्छ) spending—on multiple statues of herself, among other things—paved the way for a comeback in 2012 by the SP.
Dominated by the Yadav family, the SP is a traditional patronage machine with a strong foothold among mid-ranked castes. (Yadav is also a term for several caste-groups that together make up 9% of UP’s population.) Its current scion and the state’s chief minister, Akhilesh Yadav, has broadened this base by appealing to upwardly mobile young people, using ambitious development plans and handouts of computers for students, as well as by reaching out to Muslims.
Such newfangled (नवीन ढंग का) ways rankle (परेशान करना) with the party’s old guard, which includes his father and uncle. A tussle over control of the party, including a legal battle over the ownership of its symbol—a bicycle—has given the SP little time to prepare. A last-minute electoral alliance with Congress has prompted further dissent within the ranks. But the younger Mr Yadav is personally popular, and his newfound friendship with Mr Gandhi, whose forebears are somewhat more illustrious, gives their alliance a respectable look.
Three’s a crowd
India’s notoriously (कुख्यात रूप से) unreliable opinion polls put the SP/Congress and BJP in a rough tie at just over 30% each, with the BSP trailing slightly behind. But because the voting system can easily tilt on a few percentage points, few experts are willing to call a winner just yet. They are not even sure how Mr Modi’s most controversial policy, the sudden voiding, in November, of 86% of India’s paper currency, will play out. “Demonetisation” caused severe shock, with businesses unable to trade and workers unable to collect pay. Yet even among the poor and hardest hit, many still believe that Mr Modi did the right thing by hitting the rich.
The BJP, which has a base among upper-caste Hindus, holds some useful cards. Mr Modi is a strong national figure, and his party is less tainted with corruption than its rivals. The just-revealed national budget, unsurprisingly, includes tax breaks for the poor and for small businesses, as well as boosts to spending on rural welfare. The BJP can also rely on grassroots help from Hindu-nationalist groups. Its local candidates have not shied away from pressing religious buttons, well-worn in a state that has witnessed periodic sectarian clashes. The most recent, in 2013, left at least 42 Muslims and 20 Hindus dead.
But such tactics were tried in state elections in 2015 in the neighbouring state of Bihar, where the BJP had also done well in national elections. They failed after two local parties unexpectedly buried their differences and merged, winning in a landslide thanks in part to a solid Muslim vote.
Few Muslims will vote for the BJP, leaving the SP and BSP to compete for their favour. But a visit to Rampur, a Muslim-dominated district in the north-west of the state, reveals that at a local level this contest is not even about parties so much as personalities. Kazim Ali Khan, a candidate for the BSP, happens to be the titular (नाम मात्र के) nawab of Rampur, whose ancestors once ruled the district as a princely state. Abdullah Azam Khan, the SP candidate, is from a rival clan whose forebears are said to have worked in the royal stables. The two clans have been enemies for generations.
Mr Khan the nawab, who has switched party allegiance several times over the years, accuses the rival clan of exploiting public office to enrich itself by grabbing land from the rural poor. Speaking in a tent erected in a village, he urges voters to punish the other side. “This is not an election,” he says. “It’s a war.”