Uttar Pradesh polls: Defections dent perception of BJP's invincibility

The Uttar Pradesh elections, which seemed to be going the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) way, may have become slightly tighter with the last-minute exit of three Cabinet Ministers, Swami Prasad Maurya, Dara Singh Chauhan and Dharam Singh Saini, from the party.

Overall, the sudden spate of defections saw the BJP losing nine MLAs. All those who quit the party are OBCs and their exit may dent the BJP's dominance among non-Yadav OBCs to an extent. The party had been dominating the state's politics over the last seven years precisely due to a combination of upper caste and non-Yadav OBC votes. Sections of Dalits had also begun to vote for the BJP, making the Hindutva social coalition almost unbeatable.

As per surveys, however, the BJP is still ahead of its main rival Samajwadi Party (SP). However, if defections continue, the battle may be closer than earlier thought.

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The challenge that the BJP faces now is in the battle of perception at the last moment. While quitting, the MLAs have also accused the party of not doing enough for the poor, Dalits and backward classes. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has responded with pro-Dalit optics, having lunch with a Dalit family on Makar Sankranti. How far such optics help remains to be seen, as these have been routinely tried by many political players, including Rahul Gandhi, in the past.

Moreover, it is possible that the image of Adityanath, who projects himself as in command at all times, make take a slight hit if Akhilesh Yadav is seen as having outsmarted him.

The shift of lower OBCs to the BJP took place because of a perception that Samajwadi Party's Mandal politics was in practice Yadav politics. While the party employed the Mandal discourse, smaller OBC castes began looking for greener pastures as they began to believe that Yadavs alone gained from the SP coming to power. Also, the coming of SP to power was also perceived by Dalits as Yadav power. Given the adverse relations of Dalits with dominant OBC castes, SP could not make inroads into Dalit votes at all.

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This time around, Akhilesh Yadav has tried to check the perception of Yadav-centric politics by reaching out to OBC leaders from smaller caste groups. Instead of allying with parties like the Congress and BSP, Yadav has aligned with small parties led by leaders from non-Yadav OBC castes, like Om Prakash Rajbhar. The second part of his strategy is to attract non-Yadav OBC leaders from the BJP, a process that lies at the base of the present OBC defections. The alliance with the RLD, a party associated with the dominant caste of Jats, is also likely to help the SP in western UP, where there has been anger against the BJP among Jats because of the now-revoked farm laws.

However, what keeps the BJP a favourite for power in the state is the complete support of the upper castes, who number at least 20-percent of the population. Despite a perception that Brahmins were angry with Adityanath after the Vikas Dubey encounter -- and despite the SP and BSP evoking Parshuram to attract Brahmins -- the numerically powerful caste seems to be sticking to the BJP. The party's edge over SP has been so clear that it can pass the majority mark even if it suffers mild losses.

However, it can be in trouble if a section of Brahmins splits from the BJP, something of which there are hardly any signs as of now.

Nevertheless, the BJP will have to watch out for how the non-Yadav OBCs vote. Have they become consistent voters of the BJP or is their support mainly transactional? How castes whose leaders have quit the BJP vote will answer this question, as the non-Yadav OBCs have till now not been as solid a voting chunk as Yadavs, and a degree of fluidity has marked their politics, in which caste leaders do matter.

This last-minute confusion has given the SP an outside chance of upsetting the BJP, despite the latter having gone into the election as the clear favourite.