Results of the elections to the 16th Lok Sabha will be declared tomorrow. It has been a long and arduous battle, culminating in a crescendo with the marquee contest for Varanasi in the last round of polling. The voting is all done now and as we move towards counting day, Uttar Pradesh, is the center of all the attention. Without even going into the efficacy and accuracy of exit polls all over again, it is almost certain that once again the result in UP will determine who rules in Delhi. This state that elects 80 of the country's 543 legislators has given it 9 of its 13 prime ministers. Its small wonder that the latest aspirant to that position rushes to UP to get the right credentials. But India's most electorally significant state is also its most enigmatic one. This post is about trying to understand Uttar Pradesh better to see if there are any pointers to what is going to happen tomorrow.
To start with it is perhaps good to get an idea of the scale we are dealing with here. UP is the biggest state of India by population and 4th biggest by Area. With a population of ~200M if UP were a country it would be the sixth most populous in the world. Secondly, even though it seems to be a single large swathe of riverine plains extending across the northern part of India, it is pretty diverse in terms of the demographic. Essentially we are dealing with a reasonably complex creature here, and it needs to be broken into smaller, more manageable regions to do any meaningful analysis. The following graphic shows something I have done in a hurry. It is not based on any official source, but rather something rough to give some idea of bearings.
The Doab is the name given to the narrow strip of land between the rivers Ganga and Yamuna the two most prominent features of UP's political geography. This extends all the way from the northern border of the state with Uttarakhand where the two rivers originate to Alahabad where they meet. This is split further into what is called the Upper Doab, or the Jat heartland of Western UP and the Lower Doab (or Doab here) extending from Agra to Allahabad. Rohilkhand is the region wedged between the Ganga and the border with Nepal and gets its name from being hitorically ruled by the Rohilla Afghans of Bareily. Similarly the region below the Yamuna is called Bundelkhand and stretches into northern part of the adjoining Madhya Pradesh. The eastern part of the state is often referred as Purvanchal together with a large part of western Bihar. Awadh is the area around the capital city of Lucknow between Rohilkhand and Purvanchal, this was the area hitorically part of the empire of the Nawabs of Awadh (Oudh). Besides the historical, geographical and demographic context to the way UP is devided into regions, there is also a strong distinction in economic aspects. The western parts of Up for example benefitted from the green revlution much more than the eastern ones and that has led to a significant economic divide between these regions. Needless to say these regions exhibit significantly different voting behavior and thats where we go nex
The graphic below shows the results of elections in UP from 1977 to 2013. Use the < and> buttons to scroll across years or the dropdown to go to a particular year.
As one can see, UP is not a state averse to whitewashes. While in 1977 the BLD wiped out the Congress from UP on the back of a strong anti emergency sentiment, The Congress did the same in 1984, winning all but two in 1984 (Etah and Baghpat which to this day remain agrarian/socialist strongholds). What seems to be interesting though is that since 1989 the contest has got more and more quadrangular, with the BJP and then the BSP emerging as strong forces in the state. Consequently we can see this in a four way split of the seats between the 4 main parties. Also 1998 was the closest that UP has come to a one sided result in a while and in the last 4 elections there has been a convergence in the vote shares and seats won by various parties.(notice funnel shape in vote share graphic below).
Also worthwhile to note is where we ended in 2009. The 2009 election saw as clear a 4 way split in terms of seats as UP has ever seen. Even though the BSP was not the largest party in terms of seats, it did end up with the highest vote share (rather comfortably). At 27% the BSP's voteshare was a good 10% higher than the BJP and Congress and 4% higher than the SP. However even more interesting is the gradual consolidation across 5 general elections that this culminates in. This looks like a base that has been gradually built over time something that might not be very easy to blow away with a wave. The vote base of the Samjwadi Party seems a little more fickle, but only a little. If the BJP has to get to levels anywhere near to where it was in 1998 and what the opinion polls are predicting, it has to increase its voteshare by a whooping 20%. As in much of the country the BJP would be hoping that at least a part of it would come from the Congress voteshare (say 10%), but that itself is not going to be enough. The BJP will have to make a significant dent in the well established caste coalitions of the SP and BSP. There has been some debate around 'wave' and 'tsunami', if the BJP has to get back to 40% voteshare and 50+ seats, it better be a tsunami because a mere wave wont do. I will try to explore a bit more about where the remaining 10% is going to come from.
The graphic above shows the regional distribution of seats between various parties in 2009. We can see that in 2009 the Congress put up a very credible performance to emerge as a force in Awadh whereas in the Doab region the SP continued to maintain its stranglehold winning 6 of the 9 seats (this includes traditional SP bastions like Mainpuri, Etawah and Kannauj) . The BSP turned out with its best performance in western UP and Purvanchal (where the spoils were almost equally split in 3 and 4 cornered contests, many of the quiet close- Graphic below)
One more thing that I tried to look at was what are called bastions. Or seats that some parties seem to win with reasonable frequency. One could follow with the argument that if a party Wins often from a seat and if the margin was particularly large in the last election, chances are that they would retain it. To look at this i looked at a 3 election horizon (and tried to find seats where one party had won twice or more) and a 5 election horizon (and tried to find seats where one party had won thrice or more) The results are shown below.
In the 5 election horizon - the BJP shows up with 20 seats where it has won more than 3 times. Interestingly a majority of these seats are concentrated in western UP and Purvanchal apart from a few urban centers like Lucknow and Bareily elsewhere. Lucknow and Gorakhpur are 2 seats that the BJP has won each time in the last 5 elections, true bastions. Not even Banaras qualifies for that distinction.
In the case of SP there are 17 such seats. Their strength in the doab is reflected in the strongholds like Mainpuri, Kannauj and Etawah. Kaiserganj, Mohanlalganj (in Awadh) ,Jalaun (Rohilkhand), Balia and Phulpur are others that are less widely known.
In the case of Congress its the usual Amethi, Rai Bareily, Pratapgarh, Kanpur, whereas in the case of the BSP they have a couple of strongholds in Purvanchal (notably Akbarpur) and few in Awadh. To note here is the fact that the BSP is a late entrant and hence seems to be under represented in the 5 election horizon.
The case of BSP was the reason for looking at the 3 election horizon separately (which has a higher recency effect and in the case of the BJP a higher dose of reality). The big change between the 5 election and 3 election horizons is the viibility of the BSP as a force in northern Purvanchal of late, as well as emergence of SP as a force in southern purvanchal. The good news for the BJP is that they still seem to be retaining their strength in western UP, even in the more recent 3 election horizon.
So where does all of this leave us in the context of our original question on what it would take for the BJP to make it to the 40% vote share, 50 seats mark in UP.
Lets start with Western UP. It is the only region in UP where the BJP was still number 2 in terms of voteshare (having been relegated to 3 and 4 in other regions). Also to keep in mind is that if we included a part of the RLD (part of NDA in 2009) to the BJP vote share it gets even better (though still 3-4% behind the leader BSP). To start with western UP seems to be the BJP's best bet to get back in the game in UP. If the BJP can take away 6-8% from the Congress and supplement it with a base among new first time voters (which will be a significant factor this time) they have a good chance of winning western UP without making a significant dent in the base of the BSP and the SP. The recent riots and resulting polarization will also play a part here.
In Rohilkhand - a similar scenario presents itself here, with the difference that the difference between the BJP and the leaders SP, BSP is lower at about 5%.. So if the BJP could increase their vote share by about 10% points taking from the Congress and gaining supplementing with new voters, it still barely gets it slightly in front the leaders. To get back to levels where it was in 1998 (37%), it will have to make a severe dent in the bases of BSP and SP.
Moving on to the Doab, here the BJP is more than 22% behind the leader SP. One wonders whether even a tsunami can make a dent for the BJP in this Yadav heartland, where seats like Mainpuri, Etawah and Kannauj elect the SP with heavy margins in election after election.
Awadh is a slightly different case. Here even though the BJP is behind the leader by 20% (like in the Doab) that leader happens to be the Congress in this case. After Western UP this seems to be another area where the BJP would be looking to make some serious inroads. It needs to be noted though that even if the Congress seats and voteshare seems to be up for grabs the same cannot be said about SP and BSP which have some notable bastions in this area (Mohanlalganj and Kaiserganj for SP and Sitapur, Misrikh for the BSP)
Lastly to the largest and most important one, Purvanchal. Here the BSP has established itself as a significant force in the last two elections, With highest vote share (still only 27%) and joint highest number of seats. Most of Purvanchal saw 3 and 4 cornered contests some of them very close. The other interesting point is that the BSP seems to be the only party which is strong across Purvanchal (in 2009). The SP seems to be stronger in Southern Purvanchal, while the Congress was stronger in the northern part and parts bordering Awadh.
To sum it up, If the BJP has to get to 50 seats (36-38%) vote share in UP, it has to sweep Western UP. To add to it it has to literally replace the congress in Awadh and make severe dents in the BSP's vote base in Purvanchal, to get ~2/3 of the seats in both regions. BJP will have its biggest challenge, and a worthy challenger in the form of Mayavati and BSP. It will be difficult, bordering on impossible and if they can pull it off, nothing less than a tectonic shift in the politics of UP.
To start with it is perhaps good to get an idea of the scale we are dealing with here. UP is the biggest state of India by population and 4th biggest by Area. With a population of ~200M if UP were a country it would be the sixth most populous in the world. Secondly, even though it seems to be a single large swathe of riverine plains extending across the northern part of India, it is pretty diverse in terms of the demographic. Essentially we are dealing with a reasonably complex creature here, and it needs to be broken into smaller, more manageable regions to do any meaningful analysis. The following graphic shows something I have done in a hurry. It is not based on any official source, but rather something rough to give some idea of bearings.
The Doab is the name given to the narrow strip of land between the rivers Ganga and Yamuna the two most prominent features of UP's political geography. This extends all the way from the northern border of the state with Uttarakhand where the two rivers originate to Alahabad where they meet. This is split further into what is called the Upper Doab, or the Jat heartland of Western UP and the Lower Doab (or Doab here) extending from Agra to Allahabad. Rohilkhand is the region wedged between the Ganga and the border with Nepal and gets its name from being hitorically ruled by the Rohilla Afghans of Bareily. Similarly the region below the Yamuna is called Bundelkhand and stretches into northern part of the adjoining Madhya Pradesh. The eastern part of the state is often referred as Purvanchal together with a large part of western Bihar. Awadh is the area around the capital city of Lucknow between Rohilkhand and Purvanchal, this was the area hitorically part of the empire of the Nawabs of Awadh (Oudh). Besides the historical, geographical and demographic context to the way UP is devided into regions, there is also a strong distinction in economic aspects. The western parts of Up for example benefitted from the green revlution much more than the eastern ones and that has led to a significant economic divide between these regions. Needless to say these regions exhibit significantly different voting behavior and thats where we go nex
The graphic below shows the results of elections in UP from 1977 to 2013. Use the < and> buttons to scroll across years or the dropdown to go to a particular year.
As one can see, UP is not a state averse to whitewashes. While in 1977 the BLD wiped out the Congress from UP on the back of a strong anti emergency sentiment, The Congress did the same in 1984, winning all but two in 1984 (Etah and Baghpat which to this day remain agrarian/socialist strongholds). What seems to be interesting though is that since 1989 the contest has got more and more quadrangular, with the BJP and then the BSP emerging as strong forces in the state. Consequently we can see this in a four way split of the seats between the 4 main parties. Also 1998 was the closest that UP has come to a one sided result in a while and in the last 4 elections there has been a convergence in the vote shares and seats won by various parties.(notice funnel shape in vote share graphic below).
Also worthwhile to note is where we ended in 2009. The 2009 election saw as clear a 4 way split in terms of seats as UP has ever seen. Even though the BSP was not the largest party in terms of seats, it did end up with the highest vote share (rather comfortably). At 27% the BSP's voteshare was a good 10% higher than the BJP and Congress and 4% higher than the SP. However even more interesting is the gradual consolidation across 5 general elections that this culminates in. This looks like a base that has been gradually built over time something that might not be very easy to blow away with a wave. The vote base of the Samjwadi Party seems a little more fickle, but only a little. If the BJP has to get to levels anywhere near to where it was in 1998 and what the opinion polls are predicting, it has to increase its voteshare by a whooping 20%. As in much of the country the BJP would be hoping that at least a part of it would come from the Congress voteshare (say 10%), but that itself is not going to be enough. The BJP will have to make a significant dent in the well established caste coalitions of the SP and BSP. There has been some debate around 'wave' and 'tsunami', if the BJP has to get back to 40% voteshare and 50+ seats, it better be a tsunami because a mere wave wont do. I will try to explore a bit more about where the remaining 10% is going to come from.
The graphic above shows the regional distribution of seats between various parties in 2009. We can see that in 2009 the Congress put up a very credible performance to emerge as a force in Awadh whereas in the Doab region the SP continued to maintain its stranglehold winning 6 of the 9 seats (this includes traditional SP bastions like Mainpuri, Etawah and Kannauj) . The BSP turned out with its best performance in western UP and Purvanchal (where the spoils were almost equally split in 3 and 4 cornered contests, many of the quiet close- Graphic below)
One more thing that I tried to look at was what are called bastions. Or seats that some parties seem to win with reasonable frequency. One could follow with the argument that if a party Wins often from a seat and if the margin was particularly large in the last election, chances are that they would retain it. To look at this i looked at a 3 election horizon (and tried to find seats where one party had won twice or more) and a 5 election horizon (and tried to find seats where one party had won thrice or more) The results are shown below.
In the 5 election horizon - the BJP shows up with 20 seats where it has won more than 3 times. Interestingly a majority of these seats are concentrated in western UP and Purvanchal apart from a few urban centers like Lucknow and Bareily elsewhere. Lucknow and Gorakhpur are 2 seats that the BJP has won each time in the last 5 elections, true bastions. Not even Banaras qualifies for that distinction.
In the case of SP there are 17 such seats. Their strength in the doab is reflected in the strongholds like Mainpuri, Kannauj and Etawah. Kaiserganj, Mohanlalganj (in Awadh) ,Jalaun (Rohilkhand), Balia and Phulpur are others that are less widely known.
In the case of Congress its the usual Amethi, Rai Bareily, Pratapgarh, Kanpur, whereas in the case of the BSP they have a couple of strongholds in Purvanchal (notably Akbarpur) and few in Awadh. To note here is the fact that the BSP is a late entrant and hence seems to be under represented in the 5 election horizon.
The case of BSP was the reason for looking at the 3 election horizon separately (which has a higher recency effect and in the case of the BJP a higher dose of reality). The big change between the 5 election and 3 election horizons is the viibility of the BSP as a force in northern Purvanchal of late, as well as emergence of SP as a force in southern purvanchal. The good news for the BJP is that they still seem to be retaining their strength in western UP, even in the more recent 3 election horizon.
So where does all of this leave us in the context of our original question on what it would take for the BJP to make it to the 40% vote share, 50 seats mark in UP.
Lets start with Western UP. It is the only region in UP where the BJP was still number 2 in terms of voteshare (having been relegated to 3 and 4 in other regions). Also to keep in mind is that if we included a part of the RLD (part of NDA in 2009) to the BJP vote share it gets even better (though still 3-4% behind the leader BSP). To start with western UP seems to be the BJP's best bet to get back in the game in UP. If the BJP can take away 6-8% from the Congress and supplement it with a base among new first time voters (which will be a significant factor this time) they have a good chance of winning western UP without making a significant dent in the base of the BSP and the SP. The recent riots and resulting polarization will also play a part here.
In Rohilkhand - a similar scenario presents itself here, with the difference that the difference between the BJP and the leaders SP, BSP is lower at about 5%.. So if the BJP could increase their vote share by about 10% points taking from the Congress and gaining supplementing with new voters, it still barely gets it slightly in front the leaders. To get back to levels where it was in 1998 (37%), it will have to make a severe dent in the bases of BSP and SP.
Moving on to the Doab, here the BJP is more than 22% behind the leader SP. One wonders whether even a tsunami can make a dent for the BJP in this Yadav heartland, where seats like Mainpuri, Etawah and Kannauj elect the SP with heavy margins in election after election.
Awadh is a slightly different case. Here even though the BJP is behind the leader by 20% (like in the Doab) that leader happens to be the Congress in this case. After Western UP this seems to be another area where the BJP would be looking to make some serious inroads. It needs to be noted though that even if the Congress seats and voteshare seems to be up for grabs the same cannot be said about SP and BSP which have some notable bastions in this area (Mohanlalganj and Kaiserganj for SP and Sitapur, Misrikh for the BSP)
Lastly to the largest and most important one, Purvanchal. Here the BSP has established itself as a significant force in the last two elections, With highest vote share (still only 27%) and joint highest number of seats. Most of Purvanchal saw 3 and 4 cornered contests some of them very close. The other interesting point is that the BSP seems to be the only party which is strong across Purvanchal (in 2009). The SP seems to be stronger in Southern Purvanchal, while the Congress was stronger in the northern part and parts bordering Awadh.
To sum it up, If the BJP has to get to 50 seats (36-38%) vote share in UP, it has to sweep Western UP. To add to it it has to literally replace the congress in Awadh and make severe dents in the BSP's vote base in Purvanchal, to get ~2/3 of the seats in both regions. BJP will have its biggest challenge, and a worthy challenger in the form of Mayavati and BSP. It will be difficult, bordering on impossible and if they can pull it off, nothing less than a tectonic shift in the politics of UP.
