As crucial West UP goes to polls, BJP banks heavily on its M vote

When it comes to western Uttar Pradesh, the Muslim vote bank, often referred to as 'minority' or 'M' vote, has been the toast of media headlines for as long as I can remember. Usually, the debate hovers around which party the Muslims are likely to vote en masse, will they vote only to defeat the BJP, will their votes be split and other related angles. The reason is obvious. It is in this crucial West UP region that there are about 50 seats where Muslim population is in heavy density and hence can swing the direction of the elections. As the current round of assembly elections has essentially come down to a two-horse race, the Samajwadi Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal combine is confident that the Muslims vote will come to their kitty without a noticeable split. But this time the Bharatiya Janata Party is also banking heavily on its own 'M' vote bank. These are the Mahila voters of UP.

Women voters were hardly perceived as a vote bank in previous elections. Their voting choice was bracketed with their respective caste, community and sometimes region. And rightly so because women largely voted for the party or candidate that the men folk in the family asked them to. But that trend is showing a definite shift and women seem to be emerging as a definite vote bank in their own right. The change in the women's voting coincides with another encouraging trend in Indian elections. The steadily rising number of women exercising their franchise.

In a webinar last year, Election Commission of India expressed satisfaction that women had not only closed the gap with their male counterparts but also reversed the trend by outnumbering men by 0.17 percent in 2019 Lok Sabha. If we look at states, 13 states recorded more women voters than men. This number was 10 states in 2014. Just for the record, in 1962, women were down by 16.71 percent.

Coming to Uttar Pradesh, the trends have been even more encouraging. In the last assembly elections in 2017, UP women voters outnumbered their men by an impressive margin. While the share of women voting was 63.26 percent, men voters were 59.43 percent. Nearly a 4 percent gap in favour of the women.

In this round of elections, BJP is confident that the Mahila vote is tilted more in its favour than any other party. The BJP's optimism is based primarily on its Labharthi politics or the dividends of welfarism. While welfarism is not a women-specific issue, the BJP believes that women have benefitted most from it. Some of the schemes were directly targeted to make women's lives easier. These include toilets and Ujjawala. But the party also believes that other schemes such as free rations through the entire COVID period, improvement in electricity supply and houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (rural and urban) are bound to have a bigger effect on womenfolk because the it is the women who have to run the households and these schemes have helped them in making their lives easier.

These benefits have been highlighted repeatedly by the BJP's campaigners, from PM Narendra Modi down to the booth level worker connecting door to door. Issues of empowerment have been flagged for months, long before the elections were announced. Among them, registration of houses in the name of the lady of the house and schemes for young women figure prominently.

But when it comes to women the party's big ticket issue continues to be law and order. To be sure, law and order matters for every citizen including traders, businessmen, industrialists, even a common traveler. But insecurity restricts the live of women more than any other section of society. From NCR in west UP right up to the Bihar border, law and order is and will remain the party's number one campaign issue with special emphasis on women.

The primary reason for this stress on women voters is that the BJP thinks this is the only way it can over-ride considerations of caste, community, and region which threaten to affect its chances of a comeback.

If the BJP does indeed romp back to power in Lucknow, it might well be with the support of the Mahila voter, the new M factor in heartland electoral politics.

(Smita Mishra, Advisor, Prasar Bharati)

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