As usual, the elections began with lofty promises by different political parties in their respective election manifestos. As the election advances; it boils down to popular slogans, mobilisation of voters on caste lines and narrative to influence floating voters. The month-long seven phase election commenced with issues of law and order, terrorism, stray cattle menace to lack of jobs to the hijab controversy in Karnataka to the crisis in Ukraine -- everything was subject of the campaign in Uttar Pradesh
The UP assembly elections are a high-stakes battle because of the larger context of the importance of the state which sends 80 members to the Lok Sabha. The upbeat opposition, capitalising on discontent among the people, hopes to form the next government as the UP assembly election results will have a bearing on the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
Officially, the UP battle is a four-cornered fight involving Bharatiya Janata Party, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samajwadi Party and the Congress is now a bi-polar battle between Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath-led BJP and Akhilesh Yadav-led SP.
Whether UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will be voted back to power is the most hotly discussed issue. No chief minister has been given a second consecutive term in UP in the last 37 years. In 1985, Congress’ Narayan Dutt Tiwari in the undivided UP had won a second term.
Yogi Adityanath is the third chief minister in a row to complete the five-year term after Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav. None of the previous chief ministers from the BJP -- Kalyan Singh and Rajnath Singh -- were elected for a second term, but Yogi Adityanath is confident of his chances.
Yogi Adityanath has remained the face of the BJP's campaign, counting on his record of governance with an emphasis on his comparatively cleaner administration with better deliverables to his credit both on the development front as well as on the law and order side.
By coming out in full support of Yogi Adityanath, Prime Minister Narendra Modi signaled the BJP's readiness to risk projecting an incumbent chief minister despite numerous anti-incumbency factors at work.
As the six phases of polling are over, several issues have come to the fore, putting the BJP in a fix. They include the stray cattle menace to crackdown on illegal abattoirs and ban on cow slaughter. Narendra Modi in several election meetings acknowledged the problem faced by the farmers and assured a solution to it by the next BJP government.
Even the ongoing Operation Ganga, under which thousands of Indians stranded in Ukraine amid the Russian invasion are being evacuated, came under criticism from the opposition which said it reflected the BJP government’s poor performance.
The Modi-led Centre was quick to react, and the evacuation process topped the government agenda. Union ministers were sent to countries in Ukraine’s neighbourhood from where the students are flying back to India. Modi showed his astute political sense when he said that had the previous governments invested in medical education in India, the Indian students in Ukraine would not have had to go through this ordeal.
It is also important to note that all through its campaign, the BJP has not taken its feet off the pedal; complacency has not set in even constituencies and phases where the saffron party had an advantage. It preferred to show its rank and file that they needed to work hard to win each and every seat.
The spirited fight put up by the SP and its allies --Rashtriya Lok Dal, the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party, Mahan Dal and Janvadi Party, has shown that the wheels of Mandal are still turning.