The Economic Times daily newspaper is available online now.

    Alliances worked well for BJP in UP, Bihar

    Synopsis

    In 2019, the BJP continued the alliance with the Apna Dal and added the Nishad Party to its fold in UP.

    NDAAgencies
    The NDA added JD(U) to its alliance and together with the LJP it ruled Bihar, winning 39 of the 40 seats that were on offer. Aligning with the BJP improved the vote share of both the JD(U) and LJP.
    At one end it is the failure of alliances among the opposition in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. However, at the same time, it worked well for the BJP as the NDA won 102 of the 120 seats.

    In 2014, the BJP made new alliances with the Apna Dal in UP and the Lok Janshakti Party and Rashtriya Lok Samata Party in Bihar. In 2019, the BJP continued the alliance with the Apna Dal and added the Nishad Party to its fold in UP. In Bihar it added the Janata Dal (U) to the NDA fold, even as the RLSP went with the UPA.

    Initial numbers suggest that the BJP has been able to get the Patel and Nishad votes. Huge victory margins in seats such as Gorakhpur and Mirzapur are an indicator that the Nishads rooted for the party. On both these seats, the Samajwadi Party fielded candidates of the Nishad community but they failed to make an impact. When the Nishad Party was with the SP, it could win the Gorakhpur seat in the by-elections in 2018.

    On the other hand, the opposition came together with the SP, Bahujan Samaj Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal joining hands in making a strong caste-based alliance. However, that didn’t reflect in the results. In fact, the SP has lost a 4-percentage-point vote share from what it had got in 2014. Its vote share came down from 22% to 18% in 2019 election. The party won five seats as it had in 2014, but the equation was quite different. Similarly, the RLD once again failed to attract Jat voters to its fold in western UP and lost the three seats it contested.

    The BSP held on to its 19% vote share as it had in 2014, and the party won 11 seats from none in 2014.

    The vote transfer among the alliance partners is not much evident in the results even together the three partners together got around 39% of votes.

    In many seats, though Muslims came together for the grand alliance, the caste votes of Yadavs and Jatavs didn’t go to it in many places. In Sant Kabir Nagar, the Congress fielded Bhalchandra Yadav against Praveen Nishad of the BJP and Bheesma Shankar of the BSP. Yadav got 1,27,891votes and the BSP lost the seat by 35,000 votes.

    The NDA added JD(U) to its alliance and together with the LJP it ruled Bihar, winning 39 of the 40 seats that were on offer. Aligning with the BJP improved the vote share of both the JD(U) and LJP.


    (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)
    (Catch all the Business News, Breaking News, Budget 2024 News, Budget 2024 Live Coverage, Events and Latest News Updates on The Economic Times.)

    Download The Economic Times News App to get Daily Market Updates & Live Business News.

    Subscribe to The Economic Times Prime and read the ET ePaper online.

    ...more
    The Economic Times

    Stories you might be interested in