The results for the Lok Sabha by-elections for Gorakhpur & Phulpur seats in Uttar Pradesh have sent shockwaves across the political landscape in India. BJP lost both of these seats which it had won easily in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. Since the losses were in the former seats of the sitting CM Yogi Adityanath & Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya the optics with this defeat look awful for the BJP. Mayawati’s Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) traditionally doesn’t contest by-elections. BSP has been steadily losing ground over past several elections including drawing a blank in 2014 Lok Sabha & an abysmal 19/403 in 2017 Assembly elections. Facing an existential crisis she time around decided to change strategy & threw her party’s support behind rival Samajwadi Party’s (SP) candidates who were contesting.

This was all done with the singular aim of toppling BJP which had swept UP in both the general elections of 2014 & the assembly elections of 2017 a year ago. The victory of this SP & BSP alliance or “gathbandhan” over BJP in UP is no doubt impressive considering their poor showing in past 2 elections (2014 & 2017). SP won the Phulpur seat by 59,460 votes & the Gorakhpur seat by 21,961 votes while BJP had won both these seats in 2014 by 3 lakh votes each. Phulpur except 2014 has been a SP stronghold so BJP could argue that it was simply a return to the averages. But Gorakhpur which was CM Yogi’s constituency since 1998 & his guru Mahant Avaidyanath (1989 – 1998) is a shocker considering that BJP won it continuously since the late 1980’s.

BJP supporters have serious reasons to worry about its performance in Uttar Pradesh in next year’s Lok Sabha elections. After all 25% of all BJP MP’s elected in 2014 were from UP & any serious dent in the numbers from this state in 2019 will have large scale implication in government formation come June 2019. There is not a single iota of doubt that this is a very bad loss for BJP no matter how you look at it. The opposition has as genuine reason to be cheerful after a long list of losses against BJP over the past few years. Some in opposition to BJP have called this the “khul ja sim sim” code for opposition to defeat BJP while others have called this the beginning of the end for the Modi government or SP+BSP alliance will whitewash BJP away in 2019, etc. Such descriptions many of which are bordering on the outlandish are extrapolating results from handful of seats to entire nation for which election is more than a year away from today. Giles Verniers has a great column where he says” it would be a mistake to attribute any predictive value to the two by-elections”.

Out of the several assumptions about these political alliances also called as “Ganthbandhans” where two or more political parties join hands I will specifically talking about something I call “TRANSFERNCE”.  BJP in UP has been getting approximately 40% of the vote share in past 2 elections (2014 & 2017). SP & BSP who were fighting independently back then got around 22% & 20% respectively. Due to the first past the post system in India, BJP’s huge vote share which was 2x its nearest competitor ensures that they romped home with thumping majorities. However if we add the SP & BSP numbers (22+20=42%) on paper it would become 2% higher than BJP’s 40%. This would mean a much closer contest on a vast majority of seats which would break down to local factors in these constituencies. However this 2% edge of SP+BSP combined with the known fact that BJP support being more concentrated in fewer no. of seats in urban pockets would then skew the balance heavily in favor of the “Ganthbandhan”. This would result in SP+BSP gaining a lot more seats than BJP. This scenario however takes into account a perfect vote transfer between the alliance partners which I call 100% vote “TRANSFERENCE”. I.e. all SP voters cast vote for -> BSP candidates & all BSP voters cast vote for -> SP candidates.

However the truth of the matter is that in many cases the votes don’t always add up i.e. 2+2 doesn’t always result in 4 come election time. A factor in vote “TRANSFERENCE” is caste chemistry within the various sub groups that make up the alliance. I shall make my point by taking the example of the other famous grand alliance during the current era: the “Mahagathbandhan” from Bihar 2015. Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) party ended its alliance with BJP in 2013. Before the next assembly elections in 2015 sensing a threat to his rule in Bihar from a BJP that was in ascendance upto that point all across India (except Delhi 2015) Nitish joined hands with his once bitter foe Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD party.

They also brought along Congress party as the 3^rd member of this grand alliance. The arithmetic of this “Mahagathbandhan” was too much for even the Modi-Amit Shah axis to overcome at a time when BJP looked virtually unstoppable. The grand alliance soundly beat the BJP + local allies as it won 178/243 seats in a landslide win. The win was attributed to the overwhelming arithmetic of grand alliance plus charisma & appeal of Nitish Kumar. However the real winner of election was Lalu Prasad Yadav who tasted power after 10 years in the wilderness. Interestingly Lalu’s RJD party had won more seats 80 vs Nitish Kumar JD(U)’s 71 even though Nitish was the face of the campaign & very well liked in the state. Shockingly JD (U)’s strike rate (seats won/seats contested) which was 84% (115/141) in 2010 with single partner in BJP had come down to 70% (71/101) with 2 partners in RJD & Cong despite the fact that the combined vote share of old 2010 alliance [BJP + JD (U)] was lower at 39% vs new 2015 alliance [RJD + JD (U) + Cong] vote share of 42%.

The paradoxical result is explained by chemistry between its two main partners JD (U) & RJD. The alliance between RJD core base Yadav’s & JD (U)’s core base (Maha Dalits & Non Yadav OBC’s consisting of Kurmis & Koeris) alliance was a misfit to begin with. In the early 1990’s when the Janata Dal came to Lalu Prasad became Chief Minister (CM). The “fruits of power” were mostly distributed among Yadav’s from government contracts to real estate to official IAS/IPS postings. Soon the backward castes other than the Yadavs such as Koeris & Kurmis (caste to which Nitish belongs) realized that this had led to the marginalization of the non-Yadav OBC castes. In 1994 in protest of this new kind of discrimination, Nitish walked out of the Janata Dal to form the Samta Party. This source of tension between the two groups played out again in 2015 when Nitish was able to convince almost all his supporters to vote for RJD candidates but Lalu was not able to transfer all his votes to Nitish resulting in more seats for RJD vs JD (U). Yadav’s now once back in power saw an increase in cases of extortion, land grabbing, harassment & corruption many of which were against JD (U) base of Mahadalit & other OBC’s.  The longer Nitish stayed in the alliance his support base which already was small to begin with would further erode & this was one of the several reasons he broke with RJD & Cong to return to an alliance with BJP.

The reason I brought up the Bihar episode is same here in UP: Vote “TRANSFERENCE”. Mayawati knows that she will be able to smoothly transfer all her Dalit votes to the SP candidates (which happened yesterday) but has doubts if all the Yadav votes will transfer to her candidates. Similar to the Other OBC’s & Dalits vs Yadav animosity in Bihar there exists similar situation in UP. I was surprised to hear in a TV report from a local reporter prior to 2017 election that the most police cases against Dalits are not from upper castes but from Yadavs. Added to this caste tension are the events of June 2 1995. Mayawati after breaking from an alliance with SP had locked herself in the state guest house while SP workers tried to break in threatening to kill her. She has never forgiven SP for that incident & uptill this bye election had refused to align with them at all costs.

When the margin of victory between BJP & alliance based on past trends arithmetic could be as small as 2% non-transfer of even a small % of Yadav votes would be fatal for chances of the BSP candidates. She could demand an equal number of seats with SP to contest but in the end could end with a far smaller number than SP if let’s say for e.g. the “TRANSFERENCE” from SP voters -> BSP is only 70%. Due to the mutual distrust between Dalits & Yadavs she doesn’t want to risk eroding her limited base any further. Thus she has chosen to tread very carefully on this issue of grand alliance. Her lower rung party workers were left to make the official announcement on their support for SP candidates rather than her. However the question remains that will she accept with this risk of less than optimal “TRANSFERNCE” of votes from SP voters -> BSP candidates resulting in her playing 2^nd fiddle to the SP or will she want to risk it going alone (no alliance) potentially losing big again & helping the BJP.

These results have shown that the BJP faces an uphill battle if there is some sort of alliance between SP & BSP in UP. Even a small amount of vote transference between both can be enough to inflict serious damage on BJP. BJP as counter will have to find small partners like it found Apna Dal in 2014 to boost its number above 40% to protect against any possible alliance. These by-elections no doubt saw a perfect “TRANSFERENCE” of votes on 2 seats between SP & BSP. But extrapolating it over 80 seats in UP might not produce the same results. This added to the fact that “TRANSFERENCE” between two caste groups which don’t have very cordial relations makes this an alliance with inherent caste contradictions. The methodology to do an addition of all votes of SP+BSP to compare vs BJP for predicting statewide results in a gargantuan & diverse state as UP is not a robust method.

POST SCRIPT:

Congress which decided to fight these bye elections alone after the disastrous experience with SP in 2017 lost deposit in both seats. Its vote share has steadily dipped from 7.5% in 2014 to 6.2% in 2017 to an abysmal 2 in one seat & 2.64% in another seat thus losing deposits on both seats. A few months ago there were rumors of the 80 LS seats being divided under the 35 (SP) – 25 (BSP) – 20 (Cong) formula as part of “Mahagathbandhan” in UP for 2019 LS elections. With the dismal results yesterday Congress has lost all leverage in negotiations & will have to take whatever SP & BSP offer as it has no presence on the ground. SP leaders have privately said that they are not willing to conceded more than 2 seats & that too the traditional seats of Amethi (Rahul Gandhi) & Rae Bareilly (Sonia Gandhi). This would mean a huge climb down for the Congress party which is staking a claim to be the Leader of Opposition parties leading a united front against BJP in 2019. The sense I get from various ground reports is that Amethi in a direct BJP vs Congress contest due to the terribly weak position of Congress in UP & neglect of Amethi is ripe for a historic upset by BJP come 2019.