Samajwadi Party's win isn't really that big; domination less comprehensive than BSP’s in 2007

The scale of the Samajwadi Party’s victory in Uttar Pradesh might seem like an even more impressive sweep than the BSP’s 2007 showing, but it’s actually a less comprehensive domination.

Unlike in 2007,when the BSP led in seats and votes in every region, this time round, the victor trails in two regions in vote share — western UP and Bundelkhand.

In western UP, in which we are including the 17 districts that make up the Saharanpur, Meerut, Aligarh and Agra divisions , the BSP’s vote share of 28.7% was considerably higher than the SP’s 23.8% though in terms of seats the latter had 29 to the BSP’s 28. Even that was thanks largely to the eastern extremities of this region bordering on the central regions of the state, where the SP did phenomenally well.

In Bundelkhand, consisting of the Jhansi and Chitrakoot Dham divisions, too, the BSP had a higher vote share than the SP, though only marginally (see graphic). It also won more seats in this region, which saw the closest contest between the four main players in the polls.

An analysis of regional vote shares also suggests that Mayawati and others may be overestimating the extent of the consolidation of Muslim votes for the SP. In Rohilkhand , a region that consists of the Moradabadand Bareilly divisions and includes the Muslim-dominated districts of Rampur and Moradabad, the SP’s vote share of 28.9% is actually a tad lower than its state average of 29.2%.

Also the fact that the Ittehad-e-Millat Council and the Peace Party between them picked up 4.5% of the vote here indicates a splintering of the Muslim vote.

The two regions where the SP was clearly much stronger this time was central Uttar Pradesh, in which we are including the districts in the Lucknow, Kanpur and Faizabad divisions, and the south-eastern part of the state consisting of the districts in the Allahabad, Varanasi, Azamgarh and Vindhyachal divisions.

In central UP, the SP mopped up an impressive 34.4% of the votes, leaving the BSP far behind at 26%. As a consequence of this huge lead in votes, the Mulayam Singhled outfit captured 76 of the 98 seats here. Considering that this area includes the pocket boroughs of the Nehru-Gandhi clan as well as the two major urban clusters of Lucknow and Kanpur, that is quite an achievement for the SP.

The south-east was largely a contest between the SP and the BSP, with the former garnering 30.2% of the votes and the latter 27.1%, both higher than their state averages.

This was also the area in which several smaller outfits like the Apna Dal, Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, the Quami Ekta Daland the Pragatisheel Manav Samaj Party picked up a sizeable chunk of votes — close to 10% between just those four — boosting the numbers for “others” and reducing the Congress to a mere 9% and the BJP to 11.5%.

In contrast, the north-eastern part of the state, consisting of the Devipatan, Basti and Gorakhpur divisions, saw both the BJP and the Congress getting a slightly higher share of votes than their state average while the BSP did significantly worse here than in most other regions. With a 6.2% voteshare here, the Peace Party also ensured that it could not be taken lightly.