In UP, did Samajwadi Party give BJP a run for its money? Data says no

File image of BJP supporters during a political rally in January 2020 (Image: PTI)

The Samajwadi Party (SP)’s performance in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections is being hailed as stellar. Some reports are abuzz about how SP leader Akhilesh Yadav has given the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a run for its money, how he has matured as a politician, and how with this election he has arrived at the national scene.

The SP’s tally has more than doubled from 47 seats in 2017 to 111 in 2022; its vote share has increased by 10 percent from 22 percent to 32 percent. However, the SP’s tally is half of what it achieved in the 2012 elections when party stormed to power. Also, the BJP’s tally (255) is more than double that of the SP’s.

The SP’s base tally is not 47 seats, neither is its base vote share 22 percent. The average SP tally in last four elections before 2022 was 128 seats — that is 17 more than current 111. Even if the SP and its allies’ numbers are taken together, which is 125 seats, it is less than this average (128).

The SP has gained a 10 percent vote share on a standalone basis in 2022. However, when it won in 2012, its vote share was 29.2 percent. Its average vote share in last four polls excluding 2022, was 25.5 percent; so, in 2022, it has gained around 6.5-7 percent.

The SP has gained mainly at the expense of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). The BSP’s vote share declined from 22.4 percent to 12.9 percent in a bipolar contest leading to a redistribution of its votes.

Another aspect is that majority of the increase in the SP’s vote share is primarily on account of consolidation of the Muslim-Yadav vote bank, who at about 80 percent voted for the SP. This alone contributed eight of the 10 percent increase.

The SP has not been able to add any other significant vote bloc outside of its M-Y core. Even the Jats have not backed the party, despite the SP’s alliance with Jayant Chaudhary’s Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD).

The increase in vote share and number of seats for the SP could be primarily related to weakening of the BSP. If, for any reason, a future contest becomes triangular or multi-cornered, the SP risks losing some of these gains. Thus, these gains are temporary just like the BJP’s gains at the cost of the Left and the Congress in West Bengal.

There are social media forwards doing the rounds that the BJP had a majority of less than 2,000 votes in about 86 seats because the BSP’s Muslim candidates and the AIMIM candidates ate into the SP’s cote bank. The truth is the BJP won 204 seats with a majority of 10,000 votes and in 18 seats the margin was below 2,000.

To Yadav’s credit, he has wooed non Jatavs (+12 percent) and Jatavs (+6 percent). His Samajwadi-plus-Ambedkarite strategy partly worked.

While Yadav has created a media perception about the SP putting up a tough fight, elections are fought on the ground and here the SP lacked foot soldiers to make a difference.

It would also be wrong to compare Akhilesh Yadav’s performance to that of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav in the October 2020 Bihar assembly polls. In Bihar, the gap between the BJP-led NDA and the RJD alliance was just 15 seats — in UP the NDA-SP+ gap is 10 times that of Bihar.

Akhilesh Yadav opted for a presidential style contest, and was no match for Narendra Modi-Yogi Adityanath combine. He made it a personality contest, instead of fighting a localised seat-by-seat election.

What also worked against the SP was that some of its candidates had a criminal cases against them and this led to 16 percent more women voting for the BJP. Moreover, the SP could not defeat the BJP’s allies the Apna Dal (Sonelal) and the Nishad Party in one-to-one contests.

The SP’s 2012 victory is largely attributed to Mulayam Singh Yadav, and that would leave Akhilesh Yadav with two successive loses (2017 and 2022) under his belt.

Akhilesh Yadav will need to build on this performance which has been far from spectacular, and learn from his mistakes. He has age on his side.