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Our Associate Editor, Navodita, analyses BJP’s sweeping the UP Civic Polls, wondering if it would bolster BJP’s Gujarat campaign. The emergence of women in the elections is a change that is palpable. Read more in the weekly column, exclusively in Different Truths.
As BJP sweeps the UP civic body elections, it may bolster BJP’s Gujarat campaign and prove to be an energy booster there. According to Election Commission website, BJP has won 577 wards, Samajwadi Party has got 187 wards, while BSP was the silent winner with 146 seats. Congress is in the fourth position with 102 seats.
The BJP won 14 mayoral seats, while BSP won two seats of Mayor. BJP’s mayor candidates have won in Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Ghaziabad, Bareilly, Agra, Firozabad, Ayodhya, Mathura, Lucknow, Kanpur, Saharanpur, Jhansi, Bareilly, and Moradabad. BSP won in Aligarh and Meerut. BJP even won the Amethi Nagar Panchayat election. In Kanpur, their candidate Pramila Pandey won the Mayoral seat. The state capital Lucknow is set to get its first lady Mayor BJP’s Sanyukta Bhatia. She defeated Samajwadi Party’s Meera Vardhan by a huge margin of 1, 31, 356 votes.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, “Vikas ki is desh mein fir ek baar jeet hui. Uttar Pradesh nikay chunaavon mein bhavya jeet ke liye Pradesh ki janata ko bahut bahut dhanyavad. Mukhyamantri Yogi Adityanathji aur party ke sabhi karyakartaon ko dheron shubhkaamnayein. Yeh jeet hamein jan kalian ki disha mein aur adhik mehnat karney ke liye prerit karegi.” (Once again it is a victory for development. A big thank you to the citizens of Uttar Pradesh for a great victory of the BJP. My best wishes to the chief minister Yogi Adityanathji and party’s grassroots workers. This victory will enthuse us towards working more for social welfare and development.)
Meanwhile, the BSP supremo Mayawati told media persons, “If BJP is honest and believes in democracy then discard EVMs and conduct voting on ballot papers. General elections are due in 2019. If BJP believes people are with them, they must implement it. I can guarantee if ballot papers are used, BJP won’t come to power. The former UP chief minister also said that along with Dalits, Muslims and other religious minorities and tribals, the members of the OBC communities were also exploited and that they all needed to unite against the BJP.”
The emergence of Mayawati and the BSP takes us back to the era of Dalit assertion in UP in the 1990s. In 
recent years, there has been considerable improvement in economic condition and political position of Dalits in parts of UP. Although the whole Dalit movement has seen two main phases since its inception, it has become rather bleak due to the lack of political will and assertion of other backward classes under Modi’s leadership by the BJP. Between 1985 and 1995, the BSP gave equal importance to all the three strategies (socio-cultural, agitational, and electoral) leading to steady growth as a movement and party saw in increase in its seats in the Assembly over 1989, 1991 and 1993 elections from 13 to 66.
It was a militant phase of vertical mobilisation of the poor and underprivileged, ideologisation of caste as a tool to break the existing system, criticism of both Gandhi and mainstream parties as ‘Manuvadi’, Dalit politicisation by highlighting the failures of Congress regimes, opposition to Hindutva, caste-based atrocities, etc. The fall of the SP-BSP coalition in June 1995, due to clashes between Dalits and backward castes and their leaders, inaugurated a post-Bahujan phase, when the latter moved politically closer to the upper-caste parties which marked its conversion from a social and cultural movement to an opportunistic party. This is seen in the two coalitions – BJP/BSP coalition governments in 1995 and realignments prior to 1996, which created three political formations – the BJP, SP-UF and the Congress-BSP. The BSP-Congress alliance enabled it to make inroads into West UP and Rohilkhand.
Recently, the ‘Ambedkarisation’ (tremendous growth in consciousness and ideas around B.R. Ambedkar) and activities of Mayawati such as holding Periyar meals, naming committees, libraries, schools after Ambedkar around Meerut had become a movement to gain self-respect. It fizzled out with the emergence of Modi in 2014 but the big question is- is Mayawati and the BSP emerging once again? These elections also drive home the point about the emergence of women leaders as legislators in UP.
Although a study by Amareesh Mishra on women legislators from the UP Assembly found that a majority
of women legislators in politics have had someone from among her close relations in politics, a big chunk of women has also come from the grassroots level. Out of 95 women legislators, 48 (about 50%) had strong family linkages, with the father, brother, mother or husband in active politics. The author felt that though criminalisation of politics appears to hinder the entry of women into the political processes, it was felt that increase in the number of women in the political process and decision-making bodies will help in countering this problem, and therefore the reservation for women in Assembly and parliament is warranted.
The current UP Vidhan Sabha has a record 38 women MLAs, the highest since independence. In elections to come will there be greater participation by the women politicians. This time six out of 16 mayors are women – do we need more women in the decision-making bodies to be able to make India and UP safer for women. After all, according to data released by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), UP recorded the highest number of heinous crimes such as murder and those against women in 2016. Safety of women remains an important election issue, often given the cold shoulder by male politicians- maybe a female representation will make India safer for them. As Gujarat electoral scene hots up with the Patidar agitation, what will be the main agenda of politicians in 2019 is anybody’s guess – development or caste?
©Navodita Pande
Photos from the Internet
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