One word that's being commonly used in the context of the Uttar Pradesh elections is "bipolar". It is being argued that the state is witnessing the most bipolar contest in years, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Samajwadi Party as the top two players and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Congress being reduced to relatively marginal positions.
There may be some truth to this, though the extent of bipolarity in the election may be debatable. Surveys have often tended to underestimate the BSP.
But who stands to gain from the bipolarity of this election? Is a bipolar contest the SP alliance's best bet to defeat the BJP? Or is there an alternative route?
This is not an easy question as there are several layers to this.
1. Bipolarity Is Helping SP Reduce the Gap With BJP
The BJP and its allies won a number of seats with very small margins in 2017. To be precise, the NDA won 103 out of its 325 seats with margins of 10 percentage points or less.
Therefore if the SP consolidates Opposition votes, these seats could become vulnerable to switching.
Then in 2017, the BJP ended up winning a number of seats due to a split in Muslim votes - mainly between the SP-Congress alliance and the BSP. According to estimates, this may have happened in at least 40 seats.
Increasing bipolarity would mean that the number of such seats may go down.
The seats in which both these factors operated in 2017 - low BJP margins and a split in Muslim votes - would probably be the ones most likely to turn from BJP to SP in this election.
Therefore, increasing bipolarity would no doubt help the alliance reduce the gap with the NDA. But is that enough to ensure a victory? Probably not.
2. When Bipolar Contests Backfired
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, efforts to ensure a two-way contest against the BJP backfired in each and every state where such an attempt was made.
The Mahagathbandhan in Uttar Pradesh managed to reduce the NDA's tally by just nine seats. The NDA still won 64 out of 80 seats in UP.
In Karnataka, the Congress and JD(S) contested together for the first time and were reduced to just two seats, with the BJP getting 25 in addition to an Independent supported by it
In Jharkhand, a grand alliance of JMM, Congress, RJD, JVM won just two seats against the NDA's 12.
In Bihar, the RJD, Congress, RLSP, HAM and VIP came together and were wiped out, winning just Kishanganj, with the NDA sweeping 39 out of 40.
But it's not just parties which formed alliances which suffered. In West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee from 2016 had been trying to make West Bengal 'Opposition-mukt' with her aggressive approach towards the Left and the Congress. As a result, she ended up opening up space for the BJP which won 18 seats in the 2019 elections.
The same mistake was made by K Chandrasekhar Rao in Telangana who tried to eliminate the Congress in the state by poaching its MLAs one by one. Less than six months after his thumping win the 2018 Assembly polls, the TRS suffered losses at the hands of both the BJP and the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections.
Then in Assembly elections, the Congress-led alliance tried to make the 2021 Assam election bipolar by aligning with AIUDF and BPF but the BJP's vote share actually increased compared to the previous election.
The point here is that attempts to make a contest a two-party one often end up leading to gains for the other party as well.
Can a Two-Horse Race Benefit the BJP?
At least two opinion polls - by ABP-CVoter and Zee News-Designboxed - have predicted that while the NDA may be losing seats due to the bipolarity, it is retaining its 2017 vote share of 41 percent.
This is an important prediction. Because after five years in power and failures on several fronts - COVID-19 second wave, stray cattle menace, unemployment, agrarian crisis to name a few - the NDA's vote share would be expected to go down a bit.
However, BJP does have a track record of retaining its vote share even when faced with anti-incumbency or a strong opponent. For instance, it improved its vote share in several states where elections were held after the 2019 Lok Sabha polls such as Haryana, Delhi, West Bengal and Assam.
4. Is An Alternate Solution Possible?
If the latest opinion polls are to be believed, the SP alliance is still about 7 percent behind the NDA in terms of vote share. This means that its gains are largely due to whatever consolidation of Opposition votes it has been able to achieve so far.
To win, it would need one or both of two things to happen: a complete shift of the BSP's vote share to the SP alliance or a shift of 4-5 percent of the NDA's vote share to its side.
Either of these possibilities can't be achieved just by wooing disgruntled voters. It would require the entire shift of key voting groups - Jatavs in the first possibility and non-Yadav OBCs and non-Jatav Dalits in the second possibility.
If this is not possible then what the SP would need a partial reversal of the bipolarity in this election. Put simply, it would need the Congress or the BSP to hold their ground.
Now, this may seem to contradict the earlier assertion that bipolarity is helping the SP. But actually, it isn't contradictory. Bipolarity is indeed helping SP lessen the gap with BJP but not enough to make it win or woo votes from the BJP.
Cut back to 2012 - the SP's best performance where it won 224 seats and 29 percent votes. Surprisingly, in that election, SP's support among its two core voting blocs - Muslims and Yadavs - went down compared to 2007. According to CSDS, SP's support among Muslims reduced by 8 percentage points and among Yadavs by 4 percentage points compared to 2007.
The party's gains mainly came from Kurmis (14 percentage points) and Jatavs (12 percentage points).
The party also benefitted greatly due to a sizable split in the core votes of both the BSP and BJP, due to the rise of the Congress.
The Congress gained significantly among Kurmis (up 7 percentage points compared to 2007), non-Jatav Dalits (up 9 points) and Vaishyas (up 11 points). The Congress also gained 4 points among Muslims, partly at the SP's expense. But this didn't harm the SP overall.
The 2012 election was the complete opposite of the 2022 election - it was extremely multipolar. And this was crucial to SP's win.
Let's come back to 2022. If there's immense anger against the BJP or a wave in favour of SP causing people across caste and communal lines to flock towards it - like AAP in Delhi or TMC in Bengal - then yes a completely bipolar contest would be good for Akhilesh Yadav.
Otherwise, a slight revival in the fortunes of the Congress or BSP may not be entirely bad for him.
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