Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections: What is the multiplication of 58 seats in the first phase

Posted on 8th Feb 2022 by rohit kumar

Will the Bharatiya Janata Party be able to repeat the history of the 2017 assembly elections in the first phase of the Uttar Pradesh elections?

 

In the 58 assembly seats where elections are to be held in the first phase, there was a BJP wave in 2017. BJP had completely ousted the SP, BSP, and Rashtriya Lok Dal by winning 53 assembly seats, but what will happen this time?

 

Will the SP-RLD alliance and the Bahujan Samaj Party be able to make a comeback in western Uttar Pradesh? What are the equations of these political parties in the first phase of elections and what is the picture emerging? Let us understand this through statistics.

 

How was the competition in 2017?

Let us first look at the results of the 2017 assembly elections. In this election, BJP became the number one party by winning 53 seats. There were only four such seats where BJP came second.

 

In the 2017 elections, the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal contested separately. Only three seats had come on the account of these two parties, while the BSP had to be satisfied with only two seats.

 

What was the strategy for the selection of candidates?

First of all, about the Bharatiya Janata Party. In the 58 assembly seats where elections are being held in the first phase, in 2017 the BJP had made the contest one-sided.

 

BJP had won 53 out of 58 seats then, but surprisingly it has cut the tickets of 19 candidates who won this time. Or say that the BJP has fielded new faces without relying on the 19 winners and four losers of the last time.

 

The party has also given tickets to three such candidates who had contested the last assembly elections on the Bahujan Samaj Party ticket. These include Bhagwan Singh Kushwaha from Khairagarh, Thakur Jaiveer Singh from Barauli, and Dr. Dharampal Singh from Etmadpur.

 

In this assembly election, Samajwadi Party has tied up with Rashtriya Lok Dal. Out of 58 seats in the first phase, RLD is contesting on 29 seats, SP on 28, and Nationalist Congress Party on one seat. The SP-RLD has changed candidates in 43 of the 58 assembly seats.

 

The special thing is that these 43 candidates neither contested the 2017 assembly elections on the SP ticket nor Rashtriya Lok Dal ticket. Anupshahr assembly seat has been given to NCP, from where KK Sharma is contesting.

 

Bahujan Samaj Party has changed candidates in the remaining 56 seats except for two candidates who won the 2017 assembly elections. These two candidates include Shyam Sundar Sharma from Mant assembly and Rajkumar Rawat from Govardhan seat. There are 30 seats where BSP candidates were at number two, but only one of these candidates has been given a ticket this time.

 

The Congress had contested the last assembly elections in alliance with the Samajwadi Party. In 2017, out of 58 seats in the first phase, Congress had fielded its candidates in only 23 seats.

 

Despite the alliance, there were many such seats where the candidates of SP and Congress were facing each other. Congress is contesting alone in this election. Congress has fielded its candidates in all 58 seats.

 

Out of these 58 candidates, five candidates contested on Congress ticket last time but lost. These include Deepak Kumar from Purkaji assembly seat, Vivek Bansal from Koil, Pradeep Mathur from Mathura, Vinesh Kumar from Baldev, and Upendra Singh from Agra Rural assembly seat.

 

According to Professor Sanjay Kumar of the Center for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), "BJP gives opportunity to new candidates in every election. The main reason is that the party changes the candidates to avoid the anti-incumbency against the sitting MLAs at the local level. In the last elections in Gujarat, the BJP had fielded one-third of new candidates. This has been the strategy of the BJP.

 

However, in the first phase, the candidates were changed by the SP-RLD alliance and the Bahujan Samaj Party, there is a second reason for this.

 

Professor Sanjay Kumar explains, "These parties decide candidates mainly based on local reasons. In this, the caste equation and the image of the candidates are considered important.

 

Status of female candidates in the first phase

 

It is necessary to have a look at the status of women candidates in the 58 seats in the first phase. Statistics show that this time the number of women candidates has increased as compared to 2017.

 

Congress has given tickets to women the most. In 2017, Congress contested 23 of the 58 seats, with only one female candidate. This time Congress has played a big bet by fielding women candidates. On the other hand, the SP-RLD alliance has given tickets to only four and BJP seven women candidates.