Maya 145;class146; act has upper castes split

Ever since elections were declared in UP, all political parties tried to adopt its own strategy for mustering support among voters of different groups.

Ever since elections were declared in UP, all political parties tried to adopt its own strategy for mustering support among voters of different groups. Most political parties have used caste as one of the main tools for political mobilisation. The caste-based mobilisation has been at the peak since last one decade. But over the last few years, there has been loosening up in the caste-based mobilisation by all political parties. They have made efforts to mobilise voters other than those who have been the vote bank for the party over last few years.

Realising the limitation of caste-based mobilisation, the BSP in recent years adopted a different strategy and tried to woo upper castes. In that effort, Mayawati nominated 86 Brahmins and 38 Rajputs as party8217;s candidates for contesting the 2007 Assembly elections. She also nominated 61 Muslims and 110 candidates from OBC communities. Most of the surveys/exit polls till the completion of the fifth round have indicated that though the BSP may fall short of majority, the party is most likely to emerge as the number one in terms of votes polled and seats won.

Further, the BSP seems to have gained compared to the 2002 Assembly elections. While there may be various reasons for the rising popularity of the BSP, one of them is that it has managed to get votes from the upper caste voters. There is a belief that Mayawati has benefited from nominating the upper caste candidates. And, she has also managed to keep intact her Dalit support base.

The findings of The Indian Express-CNN-IBN-CSDS post-poll survey helps us in analysing how upper caste and Dalit voters voted in constituencies where elections have been completed so far. They indicate that there has been a split in the upper caste voters. The split is more on class lines compared to party lines. The BJP and its allies still managed to get majority of the upper caste votes, followed by the SP. Among the upper caste voters, 12 per cent voted both for the BSP as well as the Congress. But this is not what tells us the real story. There seems to a split among the upper caste voters on class lines. The political preference of the poor and the rich among the upper castes is different. Among the upper caste poor, preference for the BSP and the SP is much higher.

There is hardly any difference in support for the Congress on class lines among the upper caste voters. If there is any, it is the rich among the upper caste who is more inclined to vote for the Congress compared to the poor. One can see similar voting pattern among upper castes for the BJP. Compared to the poor, the rich upper caste voters are more in favour of the BJP.