Uttar Pradesh: political history
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Issues dominating elections
2006-17
Ashish Tripathi, Land united UP tillers, religion now divides them, Jan 27, 2017: The Times of India
July 8, 2006 to December 2006
Four farmers died and scores were injured in clashes with police during protests against the acquisition of around 45,000 hectare of land for a power project in Dadri, Gautam Budh Nagar. Farmers claimed that the land acquired for the project was much more than required and they were given a pittance as compensation.
Sept 28, 2015
5 0-year-old Mohammad Akhlaq was beaten to death and his 22-year-old son injured in Dadri, by a Hindu mob following rumours about the family storing and consuming beef after slaughtering a cow. Lucknow: In just a decade, issues governing politics in UP have changed. In 2006, a united farmer community --transcending religious divides -fought the state government against acquiring land for a private project. In 2015, people fought among themselves in the name of religion. In 2006, Mulayam Singh Yadav was UP CM and in 2015, his son Akhilesh.
Between 2006 and 2012, the issues dominating elections were agriculture, land acquisition, corruption, law and order, social engineering and backwardness in the main. Ram temple politics had lost relevance. But after the 2013 Muzzaffarnagar riots, things started changing for the worse. People who'd never mistrusted each other -especially western UP's farmers -began fighting each other. Dadri in 2006 brought out the injustice being done to people dependent on farming through an 1894 Raj-era land acquisition law. Most of the land acquisition was for development projects like the Yamuna Expressway under the urgency clause enshrined in an 1894 law that did not permit negotiations with land owners. Besides monetary compensation, people were promised jobs, but were given nothing. Dadri's farmers, across castes and religion, fought together and got relief from the high court in 2009.In 2014, the Supreme Court upheld the high court decision. People got back their land.
The 2006 Dadri agitation paved the way for similar movements elsewhere in the state. Most of these were peaceful, but some turned violent. In January 2009, a farmer died in police firing during protests against land acquisition for an expressway at Bajna in Mathura. In August 2010, Tappal in Aligarh saw a violent protests for higher compensation against land acquired for a township which left five dead, including two policemen.
A farmer was killed during protests against land acquisition at Karchana in Allahabad in January 2011. And, that May , four died in a police-farmer clash against land acquisition in Bhatta-Parsaul, Gautam Budh Nagar. And the tribal belt of Lakhimpur Kheri, Mirzapur, Sonbhadra and Chandauli saw a mass agitation for implementation of the Forest Rights Act 2006.
Farmers refused to part with their land, approached the courts and won. The Allahabad High Court passed over two dozen orders between 2009 and 2011 quashing land acquisitions in over 30 UP districts.
In 2012, farmers' protest and land acq u i sition became major election issues and Mayawati-led BSP had to bear the brunt. The Bhatta-Parsaul agitation made land acquisition a national issue and all parties were forced to enact the 2013 land acquisition law.
After 2013, UP, particularly its west ern part, saw a series of communal clashes in the name of Love Jihad, cow slaughter and puja yatras leading to the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots in which over 65 were killed and more than 65,000 displaced. Jats and Muslims, who voted together till 2012, fell out.The impact of the polarisation helped BJP sweep the 2014 LS polls. The state hasn't seen any farmer movement since.
The mistrust between Jats and Muslims and even dalits and Muslims is now deep-seated. West UP farmers, who had never fought among themselves on communal lines are today sharply divided, so much so that Jats and dalits, who never got along well in the past, came on the same page. BJP expects this will help it fare well in the assembly election too.
Caste coalitions
Kalyan Singh’s formula: 1980s
Kalyan Singh as UP chief minister perfected a plan in the late 1980s to great success.
Singh, a Lodh strongman, was acutely aware that BJP could never hope to win in UP without expanding its core vote of upper castes and the trading community . With Muslims arrayed like a wall against the party and Yadavs and Jatavs ranged solidly behind Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati, he decided to aggressively woo non-Yadav OBCs and non-Jatav Dalits.The move met with spectacular success with BJP forming its first government in 1991. Singh's strategy was of fusing Hindutva with backward empowerment.
The lynchpin of the BJP in UP in the heady 1990s when he could do no wrong, Singh fell foul of palace intrigue and even had to leave the party for a while.
Singh's formula of attracting non-Yadav OBC and non-Jatav SC castes to BJP was junked once he lost heft in the party , that is till Amit Shah emerged on the scene. Convinced of the tactic's efficacy , the party chief returned to it during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls with breathtaking results. BJP's renewed back ward focus is writ large as it aggressively woos a section that gravitated to it during the 2014 polls when Narendra Modi reached out with a development plus Hindutva theme, strongly underpinned by his OBC roots.
In 207 in a situation where it does not have a leader --OBC or otherwise -who can transfer votes, BJP has made its move and ticket seekers who flocked to meet Singh when he was in Lucknow in Jan 2017 point to the veteran leader's hand in helping the party identify winning nominees.Non-Yadav OBC castes bagged 56 seats of the 149 declared in mid Jan 2017 for western UP and NCR constituencies .
The pitch for a segment that, unlike the Yadavs, is not wedded to the Samajwadi Party on purely caste lines is intended to tap into political empowerment of other backward castes. BJP has promoted several leaders from such OBC castes including state chief Keshav Maurya.
