Women voters fuel Modi-Yogi engine in Uttar Pradesh

Yogi Adityanath and Narendra Modi. Pic/PTI

For the Bharatiya Janata Party, one of the passages to a grand victory in Uttar Pradesh passed through the kitchens manned by crores of women. Analysts in UP say that while other parties fought in the streets, the BJP led by Modi-Yogi impressed the female voters with welfare schemes such as supplying ration and cooking gas, and housing.

The party's women's wing worked seamlessly to win the hearts of women, making the footprints of the government schemes thicker in their mind. As a result, the BJP walked away with 16 per cent more women's vote share than its close rival, the Samajwadi Party. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra changed the Congress's poll strategy to give 40 per cent representation to women through the ‘Ladki Hun, Lad Sakti Hun (I'm a woman and I can fight)' campaign, but it ended up in a disaster.

UP's male voters have weighed between the BJP and SP because the difference between the men's vote share is just four per cent points. Booth-wise polling figures suggest the BJP and its allies won some seats in the Muslim-dominated segments, because the women preferred them over of the SP and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). On its way to the 2022 elections, the Yogi government gave women the ownership of the houses built under the prime minister and chief minister housing schemes. Women were relieved when 1.67 crore cooking gas connections were given free of cost and 2.61 crore toilets were built so they won't have to use the insecure open fields. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the quota of government-provided ration was doubled.

Local experts say with welfare schemes delivered to the doorsteps, it was time for the BJP to convince the beneficiaries into voting for its candidates. Other parties, too, appealed to the women voters in their campaigns, but couldn't beat the advantage the BJP had. The BJP devised an exclusive plan to use the party's women workers to reach out to the women voters. In each Assembly segment, a 100-member team from the party's women's wing was pressed into service. Some 600 women from other states joined the effort. They connected with the voters through mahila sammelans, mehendi gatherings, rangoli competition and play card abhiyaan. The connection worked well against the Congress's women-centred campaign. The contribution of women voters was widely recognised by both PM Narendra Modi and CM Yogi Adityanath.

Congress relied on Priyanka, who had led the party in 2017's pre-poll alliance with the SP. The poor results have thrown the party into an existential crisis. It won only two seats out of 399 contested. It lost deposit in 387 seats (97 per cent), which is the second after the Independents (99.7 per cent). The BJP lost deposit in three seats (of 376), the SP in six (of 347) and the BSP in 290 (of 403). The outcome proved that the Congress fared better in alliance with the SP, while the BSP couldn't stop the Muslim voters from going to the SP and others, especially the backward classes, to the BJP. The bipolar elections avoided the division of votes, this increasing the respective vote shares of the close rivals. However, their increased vote shares did not augment the number of seats.

The Lokniti-CSDS poll survey, which was released on Saturday, confirmed the local experts' viewpoint. It said a new group of beneficiaries of welfare schemes have emerged for the ruling coalition, irrespective of caste and religious considerations. The Ram Mandir and Hindutva issues found favour only among 2 per cent of the responders and so is the case with the issue of stray animal menace raised prominently by the opponents to have the Yogi government worried, it added. The SP's Hindu vote share increased as compared to the 2017 polls, it said, adding that the BJP-led coalition secured 13 percentage point lead over the SP among the voters belonging to farming households and the ruling party's support among SCs has also increased.

In terms of the Modi government's effectiveness in retaining the four states, including UP where the party broke a 37-year jinx that didn't allow a government to come to power back-to-back, the local viewpoint differs from the Lokniti survey's finding. The local experts say the people were satisfied with the Centre and state government. Probably, they were more satisfied with Adityanath for delivering the central schemes, without the red tape. The survey says the people were satisfied with the Centre more than the state government.

Dharmendra Jore is political editor, mid-day. He tweets @dharmendrajore

Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com