Revision as of 11:11, 5 December 2017

2016: Panchayat elections

The Times of India Jan 08 2016

Subhash Mishra

Lucknow

The ruling Samajwadi Party swept the UP district panchayat chairmen's poll with a tally of 60 seats out of possible 74 after Thursday's voting. The party , which had won 36 out of 38 seats, which had been decided without contest, won 24 more after the voting, striking a blow to BJP, which lost in PM Narendra Modi's constituency Varanasi and state chief Laxmi Kant Bajpeyi's constituency Meerut.

While the only solace for BJP was its victory in five seats in western UP out of its total tally of seven, SP's clean sweep had some blemishes as well as the party-supported candidates lost some seats like Bijnor and Sitapur to rebels.

In Bijnor, suspended SP MLA Ruchi Veera, ensured the victory of her husband against the official candidate.She had been suspended after she refused to withdraw her husband's candidature and for supporting him against the officially nominated candidate.Senior minister Shivpal Yadav, however, shrugged off these minor glitches, claiming that the result was an indicator to the likely trends in the state polls to be held a year later.

2017

Seats won and votes polled by the parties

Shankar Raghuraman. In polls for heads of tier-2 UP towns, BJP got 29% of votes, December 4, 2017: The Times of India

Seats won and votes polled by the parties in mayoral and nagarpalika polls in December 2017
From: Shankar Raghuraman. In polls for heads of tier-2 UP towns, BJP got 29% of votes, December 4, 2017: The Times of India

See graphic:

Seats won and votes polled by the parties in mayoral and nagarpalika polls in December 2017

The headlines on the day of the civic poll results in Uttar Pradesh may have suggested a sweep for the ruling BJP, but that’s just the elections for mayors in the state’s biggest cities, where it won 14 of the 16 up for grabs. An analysis of the polls for theheadsof the next tier of cities — the nagar palika parishad presidents — shows that it notonly won just 35% of theseats, it got a mere 28.6% of the votes. Considering it had polled over 42% in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and close to that figure in the 2017 assembly polls, this is not great news for BJP. But its main rivalsin thestatehave little reason to cheer, having performed even worse.

BJP’s vote share in the mayoral contests for the municipal corporations was 41.4%, while the three other major parties — SP, BSP and Congress — were left far behind in the15to18% range (see graphic). In the nagar palika parishad presidents’ polls, however, the saffron party could win only roughly one in three seats or 70 of the 198 in the contest, with independents making major inroads. Its vote share of 28.6% was still comfortably ahead of SP’s 21.7% but the gap was nothing like in the mayoral contests.

A regional analysis of the nagar palika parishad presidents’ contests throws up more pointers to the challenges for BJP in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. In two regions that between themselves accounted for 90 of the 98 seats — Central UP and Rohilkhand — SP actually won more seats than BJP and in Central UP even had a higher vote share. Both in 2014 and in the assembly polls, the saffron party had led comfortably in each region of thestate.

The party’s vote share is uniformly lower in every single region ofUP, but the pick-up in the vote share of its rivals is patchy, SP putting up a strong fight in two regions but having sub-20% votesharesin western UP, the northeastern districts and Bundelkhand. BSP seems to have held its own in the southeastern districts and in the west, but yielded the main opposition space to SP in the rest. The Congress’ showing in these lower tiers belies any hopes of revival it might have gotfrom the mayoral polls.

Also worrying for BJP would be the fact that its share of seats– and, wecan besure, of votes– goesdown as thelevelof the contest dips from the biggestcitiestothesmaller onesto the bottom of the urban ladder, the nagar panchayats. In the nagar panchayats, BJPwon only 100 of the 438 presidents’ posts, independents picking up

182. While we have not calculated vote shares for this tier, it is certain that the party’s share wouldbeeven lower than in the nagar palika parishad presidential polls. BJP’s share of seatsin the members of thetwo lower tiers, nagar palika parishad and nagar panchayats, is even less than in the heads of these bodies. Only one in eight elected nagar panchayats members and about one in six nagar palika parishad members isfrom the party.

In the nagar palika parishad presidents’ polls, BJP could win only roughly one in three seats or 70 of the 198 in the contest, with independents making major inroads