In western UP, the BJP seems to have largely succeeded in wooing the Jats as the party once again 'saffronised' the state in Assembly elections 2022 and scripting history. Even though the BJP secured a fewer number of Jat-dominated seats in the 2022 elections, the majority of them sided with the ruling party.
Jats, who are a politically influential community in western Uttar Pradesh, were seen as a threat to the BJP's winning streak in the region after a nearly year-long farmers' protest over three contentious farm laws. The BJP had repealed the three laws last year. In the run-up to the Assembly elections 2022, the Rashtriya Lok Dal, which is considered the main party of the Jats, also teamed up with the Samajwadi Party, triggering speculations that the team may dent the saffron party's dominance in the Jat-dominated region. While Akhilesh Yadav and Jayant Chaudhary did cut through the BJP's vote share in these regions, the BJP was able to retain most of the seats.
The BJP also seems to have thwarted any negative consequences following the Lakhimpur incident in October last year, when an SUV, owned by Union minister Ajay Mishra Teni's son Ashish Mishra, mowed down four farmers who were returning from a protest. The incident had provided fuel for the farmers' agitation as Opposition parties rushed in to cash in on the bereavement of the families. Ashish Mishra, who had been arrested, was released on bail recently, but Lakhimpur, apparently, put the incident behind and voted on all seats for the BJP. BJP's Yogesh Verma won by a margin of 20,578, beating Samajwadi Party's Utkarsh Verma Madhur.
DH analyses for you how the saffron party performed in jat-dominated seats in Uttar Pradesh.
In the 2022 Assembly elections, the BJP won 66 of 99 seats in 21 districts where Jats are either the dominant population or are found in large pockets. The SP won 25 seats, while RLD, the party of the Jats, emerged victorious in six seats. The BSP and SBSP won one seat each.
In the 2017 Assembly elections, the BJP had won 77 of the 99 seats, while the SP had won 16 seats. In the last elections, the BSP had won 3 seats, Congress two and RLD just one.
Why the Jat-dominated region is important
The Jat population is dominant in districts of Baghpat, Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Meerut, Bijnor, Ghaziabad, Hapur, Bulandshahr, Mathura, Aligarh, Hathras, Agra and Moradabad. They are also in dominant numbers in a few pockets of Rampur, Amroha, Saharanpur, and Gautam Budh Nagar.
Since the community is socially dominant, vocal, they have the capacity to build a political atmosphere. A sweep in the Uttar Pradesh elections 2022, which is seen by many as a semi-final of the Lok Sabha elections 2024, is a boost to the BJP owing to the number of MPs it sends to the Lower House of the Parliament.
What worked for the BJP in UP
The saffron party scripted history by winning over 260 of the state's 403 Assembly seats. Even though this is relatively lower than the number of seats (312 on its own and 325 including its allies) it won in the 2017 elections, the feat is commendable.
Analysts believe that what helped the BJP was Yogi Adityanath's 'bulldozer' image, through which he sought to convey his "no-nonsense" hard taskmaster style of working. Top BJP leaders, along with Adityanath, made it a point to project the saffron party as the bulldozer that removes criminals like Mukhtar Ansari and Atique Ahmad. The party's strategy to project the BJP as the one that established the rule of law in the state also seemed to have paid off.
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