‘Support of non-core voters of Uttar Pradesh parties helped BJP win assembly polls’

New Delhi: The support of non-core voters of regional parties of Uttar Pradesh led to the Bharatiya Janta Party’s (BJP) landslide victory in the recently concluded assembly election in the state, said Vinny Jain, associate professor of political science at St. John’s College, Agra.

Speaking at a National Conference on State Politics in India, Dr. Jain attributed a major part of the BJP’s victory to the fact that the party had managed to consolidate a vote bank which consisted of peripheral voters of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) by offering these communities a share in its own power structure.

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“The BJP was successful in weaning away the smaller, non-core vote banks of regional parties in UP. For instance, the non-Yadav other backward class (OBC) voters of the SP and non-Jatav Dalit voters of the BSP, drifted towards the BJP in the assembly election. The strategy as well as the willingness of the BJP to share the benefits of power with these communities, helped it expand its social base beyond upper castes,” she said.

However, she added that other significant factors which worked in BJP’s favour were its appeal to the aspirations of the people of Uttar Pradesh with its development agenda and the power of ‘Moditva’, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the party’s election campaign in the state.