Lucknow: Union Home Minister Amit Shah recently exuded the confidence of breaking the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) 2014 record of 71 Lok Sabha seats ( 73 with allies) in Uttar Pradesh.

Winning all the seats in the first phase of the seven-phase elections is critical for the BJP, like it did in 2014, if it wants to better that year’s overall UP tally.

The party, riding on ‘Ram Dhun’, is banking heavily on gains in Uttar Pradesh to offset some possible electoral losses elsewhere in the country, hoping to achieve a hundred percent strike rate – 80/80.

The first phase nominations began on Wednesday without the declaration of candidates in some critical seats like Pilibhit. Voting will be held on April 19 in Muzaffarnagar, Pilibhit, Rampur, Bijnor, Nagina, Moradabad, Saharanpur and Kairana.

Normally, candidates get exasperated by late declaration of their names as they roughly get only about a fortnight to reach out to lakhs of voters in geographically large constituencies in UP.

Now, why winning the seats in the first phase is critical.

The BJP had won all the eight seats in 2014 polls, but lost five of these seats to the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal alliance in 2019, bringing down its overall tally by nine seats in 2019, when the BJP and allies had won 64 seats in the state.

The SP-BSP-RLD alliance, touted as a game changer then, had, however, failed to stop the BJP: It only brought down the party’s tally compared to 2014.

The Lok Sabha seats that the party lost in 2019 were Rampur, Moradabad, Saharanpur, Bijnor and Nagina; The party later won Rampur in the by-polls held in June 2022.

This explains the BJP high command’s desperation to bring the Rashtriya Lok Dal into the NDA fold, even though the party’s utility is limited to couple of seats in western Uttar Pradesh. RLD chief Jayant Chaudhury’s father and the party’s founder president Chaudhary Ajit Singh had once lost in the stronghold of Muzaffarnagar to the BJP. Then, the Jats did not vote for the SP-BSP-RLD alliance despite their anger against the BJP government at the Centre. The 2013 Muzaffarnagar communal riots is said to have played a key role in influencing the Jat community to vote in favour of BJP’s candidate, Sanjeev Baliyan, during the election.

Today, the confidence of the party regaining the five seats stems from course correction including by stitching social alliances.

The farmers’ agitation is on and though some have not approved the RLD’s shift of allegiance to the BJP, Jagat Singh, a farmer from Muzaffarnagar, is of the view that the ongoing “kisan aandolan” will not impact the voting pattern much. Jats are happy that their leader Charan Singh was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, Singh said, adding that the RLD’s return to the NDA would help the BJP.

This is countered by prominent Jat leader Anil Chaudhary, who’s had a long association with Lok Dal and is now with the Congress. According to him, the Congress guarantees for farmers, youth and women will be a game-changer in the region, where communal temperatures have cooled.

BSP and Mayawati

The other factor that may help the BJP is Mayawati’s decision to go solo as she will cut into the votes of the opposition alliance INDIA. All the eight constituencies have a sizeable Muslim population.

Many experts thus see the BJP’s hand in the Mayawati’s decision to go solo despite an open offer from the Congress. The SP-BSP alliance had consolidated Dalit-Muslim votes of the region in 2019.

For a few high-profile candidates, the electoral stakes are high. For instance, the Pilibhit Lok Sabha constituency has been loyal to Maneka Gandhi-Varun Gandhi since 1989. Maneka, as the Janata Dal nominee won the seat in 1989 and 1996, as an Independent in 1998, 1999 and 2004 and as a BJP candidate in 2014. Her son Varun Gandhi won the seat in 2009 and 2019. His candidature has not been announced as yet but the decision to field him or not will impact the party’s prospects.

SOME TALKING POINTS

Muzaffarnagar: Union minister Baliyan defeated RLD’s Singh in 2019. The Samajwadi Party has fielded prominent Jat kisan leader Harendra Malik. Will the Jats unite in favour of Baliyan amid the farmer’s agitation?

Rampur: Given that Azam khan and his family are in jail, the SP leadership would be in a fix on whom to field. The constituency with over 60% Muslims had elected the BJP nominee in the 2022 by-poll. Will sympathy factor work in the party’s favour?

Saharanpur: Thisis the only constituency the Congress will contest in the first phase. Will the party open its account with the support of the poll partner SP?

RLD: Jayant Chaudhary, who agreed to contest two of the 80 seats after snapping alliance with the Samajwadi Party, faces the challenge of retaining the social alliance of Muslim, Dalit, Jats that he has been trying to build over the years. People recall his quite popular statement “Main koi chavanni nahin hoon jo palat jaaonga (I am not 25 paisa coin which will flip).”

Bijnor: Mayawati had won her maiden Lok Sabha election from Bijnor in 1989. Thereafter, the party won it in 2019. Will she retain the seat after the breakdown of her 2019 alliance in a constituency, which has a sizeable number of Muslims, Dalits and Jats?