Updated: November 18, 2020 8:17:29 pm
Samajwadi Party Chairman Akhilesh Yadav made it clear that for the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, his party would not enter into any alliance with any major parties and would unite only with smaller parties in the state.
Shortly after the results of the Bihar elections came out, Samajwadi Party Chairman Akhilesh Yadav made it clear that for the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, his party would not form an alliance with any major parties and would it would unite only with smaller parties in the state.
So why has Akhilesh Yadav already decided to go solo and project the SP as the main opposition party with 14 months to go to the polls?
Lessons from the past
The Samajwadi Party has had bad experiences with two major parties in the past. He fought the 2017 Assembly elections with the Congress and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). However, he ended up not only with a smaller number of seats, but also his percentage of votes decreased both times.
Samajwadi Party Chairman Akhilesh Yadav greets Bahujan Samaj Party Supreme Mayawati in Lucknow in 2019 (Express photo by Vishal Srivastav).
A senior SP leader said: “In 2017, when the Samajwadi Party allied with Congress, both parties faced losses, but it was the SP that also lost its percentage of votes. Since many party leaders did not get tickets, as many seats went to the alliance partner, it resulted in full-scale resentment and, instead of vote consolidation, resulted in vote splitting. ” 📣 Express Explained is now on Telegram
What happened in 2017
In 2017, around 114 of the 403 seats in the UP Assembly were to be awarded to Congress. While no agreement could be reached, there were around 40 SP leaders who ended up competing in the entrances of Congress. That was not all. Despite the alliance, both parties were unable to convince many of their leaders to abandon their seats, and thus there were around 28 seats in which both the SP and Congress presented their candidates. It was called “friendly fights” that confused the voters. From the results of the poll it was clear that neither party was able to transfer its votes to each other’s candidates in the seats left to the other, but that infighting in both parties strengthened the BJP.
Samajwadi Party Chairman Akhilesh Yadav and former Congress Chairman Rahul Gandhi during their 2017 Lucknow road show (PTI).
SP vote share in past elections
Despite alliances with the main parties, the percentage of votes for the Samajwadi Party in the last four elections after 2012, when it came to power with a majority in the state, has been declining. While in 2012 his percentage of votes was 29.12%, in the 2014 elections to Lok Sabha it was 22.3%; in 2017 it dropped to 21.8 percent, and in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, its share of votes dropped further to 18.11 percent.
Bihar learnings and the prevailing narrative
Samajwadi Party leaders say that the results of the Bihar elections have made it clear that any alliance against the ruling BJP would work only after the elections if necessary and the pre-election alliance would only result in a division of votes, fights internal, which, in his opinion, would help. BJP or its alliance partners at UP.
Also, there is a strong feeling among the Samajwadi Party that the narrative as of now is of a fight between the BJP and the SP, and if the SP allies with any other major party, it will spoil the narrative. “There is a clear ‘BJP versus SP’ narrative for the 2022 Assembly elections in the state and the focus would be on the post-vote alliance, if necessary, rather than the pre-vote alliances. The previous mistakes would not be repeated, ”said a party leader.
It is also recognized that no party, be it the BSP, the SP or the Congress, has the ability to “transfer” the votes of its parties to the candidates of others. Therefore, the widely reached conclusion is that it is better for all parties to act alone and form an alliance after the elections.
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