All eyes on western Uttar Pradesh—from saffron to green and those in between. From Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to AIMIM and the Samajwadi Party (SP) pitching their promises to capture the minds of the electorate in the run up to the high-stakes assembly elections.

At the centre of all the hullabaloo are the farming communities of the region. Those being considered, at least in media reports and by opinion maker are the Jats and Gurjars. Of course, AIMIM has pitched the idea, just like in Bihar, of a new regime of independent Muslim representation, rather than carrying on the crutches of regional behemoths, in this case the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP. Asaduddin Owaisi, though has kept the window of alliance open, at least till his self-imposed expiry date of October 2.

The BJP wants to keep its juggernaut moving in UP since it is central to the saffron outfit’s Hindutva-based ideological hegemony, which was eroded significantly, at least symbolically, when SP wrested the Ayodhya Lok Sabha seat post-Ram Mandir construction. Also, UP gives the BJP its major chunk, though quite depleted in 2024 Lok Sabha elections, of MPs.

Akhilesh Yadav-led SP wants to wrest control back since if out of power it will be its third consecutive loss, something that political history and science does not see very kindly, so much so, that it would be the ‘writing on the wall’ moment for the Yadav-heavy regional behemoth. A third loss for Akhilesh Yadav will put him in the category of “failed” scions, notably Tejashwai Yadav from neighbouring Bihar. Though there is a wealth of difference between the politics and political flair of Tejashwi and Akhilesh—the latter has all the moorings of coming out of his ancestral Yadav shadow and shine as an independent politician in his own right who can carry a larger socially-engineered power structure on his shoulders.

Owaisi-led AIMIM is, as mentioned above, looking to stich together a strategy based on the demography of western UP Muslim-dominated........

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