Revision as of 22:27, 12 April 2017

Uttar Pradesh, some facts regarding elections, assembly (2007, 2012) and general (2009, 2014); The Times of India, Jan 5, 2017

Winning margins in assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, 2007 and 2012; The Times of India, Jan 5, 2017

Performance of Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, 2012, region-wise; The Times of India, Jan 5, 2017

The 16th UP Assembly (2012-17), some facts; The Times of India, Jan 11, 2017

2017

EC refuses permission to launch unemployment allowance, but Congress goes ahead

Kautilya Singh, EC frowns, but Rawat banks on job-card lure, Feb 7, 2017: The Times of India

The Election Commission may have grounded the Harish Rawat government's poll sop of an unemployment allowance cards scheme if the Congress is re-elected, but the party insiders claim over 10,000 registered within 48 hours of its launch.

The scheme promises one job per household for the unemployed between ages 18 and 35 by 2020, and a monthly allowance of Rs 2,500 for one jobless member in each family through a berozgari bhatta card for 36 months.

The Election Commission had earlier refused permission to the Congress to launch the card but it went ahead regardless. Congress MP Kumari Selja launched the scheme along with state unit chief Kishore Upadhyay . It is one of the party's key initiatives in its manifesto, especially as youth make up almost 57% of Uttarakhand's electorate.The Rawat government has high hopes of its `berozgari bhatta card' returning it to power.

On February 3, hours after card distribution began, the Election Commission pulled up the Congress for ignoring its January 23 directive to refrain from initiating such a scheme, that it said violated the model code. The EC sought an explanation from the party within two days.

An EC official said, “There is BATTLE no problem in a party promising UTTARA unemployment allowance in its manifesto. We objected to initiating the registration process of unemployed youth when the model code is in force. So the Congress was issued a show-cause and asked to stop distribution and registration.“ On Monday, the EC reiterated its decision. After the poll panel or der, on Saturday Pauri police seized over 20,000 cards at Satpuli. In Gumkhaal, in the Lansdowne police station area, three people were booked. Registered card holders have been ap parently provided a unique ID to activate the cards. Once actiD vated, the card AND allows the bearer to approach the Rawat government, if it returns, for skill training and jobless allowance. Tightlipped on the exact numbers of enrolments after it ran afoul of the EC, Congress insiders hazard the number registered could have crossed 15,000.

Upadhyay said: “We respect the EC and have done nothing against its guidelines,“ and that the allowance was part of the party manifesto in 2012, when thenCongressman Vijay Bahuguna had started the scheme.

“Uttarakhand has 2.5 lakh voters in the 18-19 age bracket, 21.6 lakh in the 2029 age group and 18.7 lakh voters between 30 and 39.The project target constitutes for a large portion of the vote bank,“ said a Dehradun-based observer.

Large numbers from the hill state have migrated to the plains in search of jobs, making it a poll issue. Poll analyst Jay Singh Rawat said 7 lakh unemployed youth were registered with the Uttarakhand employment exchange, but the actual numbers were higher.

BJP spokesperson Munna Singh Chauhan said, “The EC denied permission to distribute these cards but the Congress had still gone ahead with its campaign.Strict action is required against Congress.“

Muslim, SC and Jat voters

Subodh Varma, Myths of Muslim, Dalit and Jat votes busted, March 15, 2017: The Times of India

Vote shares in muslim and reserved constituencies, 2017; Subodh Varma, Myths of Muslim, Dalit and Jat votes busted, March 15, 2017: The Times of India

Numbers Show First Two Groups Backed SP And BSP, While The Third Stood By BJP

Every election campaign throws up myths that get busted by the results.But then, the results themselves generate new myths. The recent UP Assembly elections are no exception. Analysis of detailed results and comparison to earlier elections show up the truth about three riddles and the myths that pose as their answers: what happened to the Muslim vote? What happened to the Dalit vote? And what happened to the Jat vote?

Individual votes cannot be tracked, but voting trends in constituencies give an indication of where preferences of communities are heading. This can be useful to find answers to knotty socio political questions.

The Muslim Vote

The campaign saw an in tense battle between SP and BSP to win over Muslim votes which make up about 19% of the electorate. BJP's resounding victory, even in Muslim concentration areas, has led to speculation that, either the Muslim vote got divided between SP and BSP letting BJP win easily , or that Muslims voted for BJP. Both appear to be erroneous theories.

SP (29%) and BSP (18%) together got 47% vote in the 59 constituencies in UP where more than a quarter of the voters are Muslim. This is virtually unchanged since 2012 elections, although it went down to 43% in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. So, the Muslim support for the two parties is intact. The difference this time was that BJP mopped up most of the other votes -getting 39% of total votes.

This was less than their 43% in 2014 Lok Sabha elections, but still so far ahead of the rivals that they won 39 seats while SP won 17 and BSP ended up with none. SP's 29% vote share in these seats shows that its Muslim support base largely intact.

The Dalit Vote

There was a much hyped battle between BJP and BSP to win Dalit votes, especially non-Jatav Dalits. Dalits make up about 21% of the population in UP. Since BSP lost badly in the elections ending up with just 19 seats, there was a view that Dalits voted en masse for BJP. Actually , BSP has got 24% votes, down from its 27% in 2012 but up from 23% in 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Among the 85 reserved seats in the state, BJP outflanked all other parties by getting 40% of the votes with BSP a distant second at 24%.Again, BJP's appeal was across all castes and may have included some Dalit com munities too, but BSP's vote share indicates that it is just about retaining its Dalit base while BJP surged ahead.

The Jat Vote

One big myth that the elections blew up was that of the Jats, a dominant community in western UP, deserting BJP after wholeheartedly supporting them in the previous 2014 election.

In the 73 seats in Phase 1of the polls, BJP's vote share increased from a mere 16% in 2012 to 45% in 2017 while RLD, led by Jat leader Ajit Singh, declined from 11% to just 6%.

Vote shares of all other parties and even of independent candidates declined.This clearly indicates that the Jats had stood by BJP, just as they had during the Lok Sabha elections.

Female voters

BSP a bit more popular than BJP among women voters, March 15, 2017: The Times of India

Women voters tend to have a slightly higher preference for BSP than men and a correspondingly lower preference for BJP and its allies, an analysis of voting patterns in Uttar Pradesh shows.

In seats where female voters were less than 80% of male voters, the NDA polled 45.5% and BSP just 18.5%. As the proportion of female voters went up, the NDA's vote share steadily dropped and the BSP's rose. At the other extreme, in seats where more women voted than men, BSP had a 24.2% vote share and BJP and its allies 37%.

This emerges from data on male and female voters available on the Election Commission's website for 389 of the state's 403 assembly cons tituencies. Data for the remaining 14 seats was “awaited“, according to the website. An analysis of the data on gender-specific voter turnout done with the detailed results shows that there were 55 seats in which the number of women who voted was less than 80% of the number of men voting. In these seats, the BJP and its allies mopped up 45.5% of the votes cast to win 45 seats, while the BSP got a measly 18.5% and won just one seat.

There were 169 seats in which the number of women voters was between 80% and 90% of men voters. In these seats, the NDA's vote share was 42.2% and the BSP's share 21.5%. In 87 seats, women voters were between 90% and 100% of men voters. Here, the vote share of the BJP and its allies dropped further to 40.5% while the BSP's share rose to 24%.

Finally, there were 78 seats in which women outnumbered men among those who voted. The NDA lost almost one-third of these seats (compared to just one-fifth overall) and its vote share was 37%, distinctly lower than in the state as a whole. In contrast, the BSP won eight of these seats and had a vote share of 24.2%. While there is a clear pat tern of the NDA's vote share dropping and the BSP's ri sing with the proportion of women voters, there is no discernible pattern to the vote shares of the third major formation in this contest -the SP-Congress alliance.

What explains the apparent relative preference of women voters for BSP? While the data cannot answer that question, a couple of plausible reasons can be conjectured. One could be that the BSP being led by a woman makes a difference at the margins.

Another could be the perception that Maywati runs a tight administration that cracks down hard on `gundagardi'. Women are widely believed to be more sensitive to lawlessness as an issue than men. That could be a reason.Whatever the reasons though, the pattern in the data is unmistakable.