Even before the coalition of SP-Congress is formally announced in UP, the strategists have got onto work to calculate various permutations and combinations in order to get maximum votes in the upcoming assembly elections 2017. According to sources, the strategy is to get 35-37% of the total votes in the state by winning at least 25% of the non-Muslim votes. The coalition is hopeful to get a major portion of the Muslim votes, which is around 18% of the total population of the state.
The unexpected tie-up of Samajwadi Party and Congress, which is yet to be formally announced, might just have a social appeal to neutralize the groups which are pro BJP or pro BSP. The alliance with a national party like congress, which doesn’t have an impression of a pro-caste party, might also get the floating votes (mostly of the upper castes as well as working class people) in favor of the coalition.
Currently, UP has a widespread chunk of voters, which include 21% upper caste voters, 10% Yadav, 21% non Yadav OBCs, 21% Dalits and 18% Muslims.
The recent political drama inside SP, which made Akhilesh Yadav go against his uncles, Amar Singh and Shivpal Yadav and made him emerge as the new Boss in Samajwadi party, will surely have a positive image of him floating among the youth and working class of all sections in SP and it might just work wonders in the upcoming elections.
The calculation of parties might turn either way considering that Bahujan Samaj Party has given ticket to over 100 Muslim candidates and they might be able to sweep a chunk of community votes. At the same time BJP is also quite hopeful of doing great in the state, as the party got 43% of the total votes in 2014 general elections.
The success of plan for either of the three parties will completely depend on how the Dalit votes come into play. If the Dalits stay with BSP, there might be a three fold contest without majority to any of the parties. At the same time, if the Dalit vote bank shifts towards any of the other two, SP-Congress or BJP, there might be a clear majority. In the last two elections which took place, SP and BSP had a clear majority riding on their traditional vote banks.