Reading UP polls

The three-tier local body elections in UP have thrown up mixed results. The BJP needs to put on its thinking cap to stem the erosion of its base in mofussil and rural areas in a short span of eight months. It swept the municipal corporations (population of over 10 lakhs). But a closer scrutiny reveals that it has largely retained its hold over the urban voters. In 2012, during the heydays of Akhilesh Yadav, the BJP had cornered 10 out of these 12 corporations. The only difference is it has retained them and also won in the four newly-created ones. An impressive performance no doubt when weighed against the absence of any change on the ground since the Yogi Adityanath government took over.

But the BJP's strike rate progressively declines as the spotlight shifts to less urbanised areas. In the smaller Nagar Palika Parishad, it won only 17.5 per cent of the seats. And it worsens in Nagar Panchayats:  12 per cent. For all the political energy invested by the BJP as against the hands-off approach by Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati, the returns were meager in the lower two tiers. The BJP's spin managers are hard at work, pointing out that the Congress was bested in Rahul Gandhi's borough of Amethi. What they don't tell is the BJP didn't get a majority in Varanasi, lost in the ward from where Yogi Adityanath cast his vote and all six Nagar Panchayats in Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya's constituency.

In the urban-rural divide, the BJP has retained the faith of the voters in the metros but fared poorly in the latter: only 15 per cent as against nearly half in solidly urban areas. The voter mood may have shifted: the BSP has shown signs of revival but the primus inter pares among the opposition parties is still the SP. UP will soon witness two crucial and extremely prestigious Lok Sabha elections for the seats vacated by Yogi and Maurya. BJP needs to convincingly win both to demonstrate that its poor performance in the two lower tiers may have been due to local factors.