Lok Sabha Election Results: SP eats into BJP seat share in UP’s Muslim-Yadav belts — was it vote consolidation?

The Lok Sabha Election Results 2024 for Uttar Pradesh took an interesting turn on Tuesday after INDIA bloc member Samajwadi Party (SP) pulled a surprise feat by posing a tough challenge to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the state.

The SP, along with the Congress, posed a tough challenge to the NDA in Uttar Pradesh in the 2024 poll, especially in the Muslim-Yadav-dominated constituencies.

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Of the 34 Muslim-Yadav-dominated seats (analysed by Mint) in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP won 22 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections. The BJP lost eight of these 22 seats to Akhilesh Yadav's SP and one to the Congress in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Simply put, the SP and the Congress (INDIA bloc allies) reduced the BJP's seat share in Muslim-Yadav-dominated seats – snatching away nine from the 22 seats won by the BJP in 2019.

However, the SP didn't lose a single seat (won in 2019) to the BJP. The SP retained five of the 34 seats it had won in the 2019 polls: Moradabad, Rampur, Sambhal, Mainpuri and Azamgarh.

Meanwhile, the NDA retained 13 of these 34 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The BJP only retained 12 seats, while its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal bagged one.

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Meanwhile, Mayawati's Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) was wiped-out in the Muslim-Yadav dominated seats. The party had won seven of these 34 Muslim-Yadav-dominated seats in UP in 2019 – when the BSP and the SP contested in alliance. The BSP lost all these seven seats in the 2024 polls.

Detailed analysis of Muslim-dominated seats in UP

Mint analysed 23 Muslim-dominated Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh. There were Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Nagina, Moradabad, Rampur, Sambhal, Amroha, Meerut, Sitapur, Kairana, Bareilly, Pilibhit, Shahjahanpur, Bahraich, Shrawasti, Domariyaganj, Lucknow, Ghaziabad, Baghpat, Bulandshahar, Kanpur, and Aligarh.

The BJP won 14 of these 23 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections. It lost three of them to the SP-Congress alliance and retained the remaining 11 seats. Only one seat, Baghpat, which was won by the BJP in 2019, was bagged by its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) in 2024. 

Lok Sabha Election Results: 2019 Vs 2024 winners in UP's Muslim-dominated seats

Detailed analysis of Yadav-dominated seats in UP

Mint analysed 11 Yadav-dominated Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh. These were Firozabad, Kannauj, Etawah, Mainpuri, Etah, Farrukhabad, Mathura, Faizabad, Jaunpur, Azamgarh and Badaun.

An analysis of these seats showed that the SP eventually snatched a significant number of seats from the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

The BJP won eight of these 11 seats in the 2019 elections, losing six of them to the Samajwadi Party in the 2024 polls. The BSP, which won only one of these 11 seats, lost that sole seat to the SP in 2024. The SP retained two of the 11 seats it had won in 2019.

Lok Sabha Election Results: 2019 Vs 2024 winners in UP's Yadav-dominated seats

Are anti-BJP votes consolidated?

Muslim votes are believed to be among the core anti-BJP votes. In 2019, the SP contested the Lok Sabha elections in alliance with the BSP, not the Congress. Now, Political strategist Abhimanyu Bharti explained that Muslims generally vote for the SP or the Congress. So, in the 2019 Lok Sabha, the Muslim votes were divided between Congress and the SP, and they were contested separately.

"Because this time the SP and the Congress remained together, the Muslim votes remained consolidated," he said.

He further explained the politics in the Yadav-dominated Lok Sabha seats. He said the BJP gained massively in Yadav-dominated constituencies in the 2019 polls because of the SP-BSP alliance.

"Where the BSP fought, the core vote of SP, that is Yadav, voted for the BJP in certain numbers...and where SP fought, Jats and Jatavs voted in certain for the BSP," he explained. This was because the "Yadavs didn't like the BSP", he added. And this didn't happen in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.