BJP’s NYO-NJD formula in UP, will Akhilesh-Rahul’s India Alliance be able to compete? understand here

The new state team of the Uttar Pradesh unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party is not being seen just as an organizational reshuffle. In this team, which was announced about one and a half years before the 2027 assembly elections, the party has clearly indicated that its strategy is now focused not only on upper caste support but on strengthening the broad social alliance.

Recently, after some incidents related to the upper castes like the insult of Shankaracharya Avimukteshwaranand and his Batukas, the new rules of UGC, BJP is trying to widen its vote bank. So that the resentment of any one section does not outweigh it. For this, BJP seems to be working on the NYO-NJD formula. That means Non Yadav OBC and Non Jatav Dalit.

What are the equations in the new team of the state?

In the new team of the state, out of 19 vice-presidents, 7 are from OBC, 10 from general category and 2 from Scheduled Caste category. Whereas, out of six posts of regional presidents, four OBC and two upper caste leaders have been given the responsibility. It is clear from this that at the organizational level, BJP has tried to balance social representation.

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In fact, the social structure of Uttar Pradesh is such that no party can reach power without OBC and Dalit votes. The upper caste population in the state is considered to be around 17 to 19%, while the OBC population is between 40 to 41% and the Dalit population is between 20 to 21%. Muslim population is about 19%. In such a situation, OBC and Dalit classes together represent more than 60% of the state’s population.

This is the reason why in the new BJP team, maximum focus is seen on non-Yadav OBC groups. In these, efforts have been made to give representation to Kurmi, Lodhi, Maurya, Rajbhar, Nishad, Gurjar and other backward castes.

What is election mathematics?

There is also mathematics of election data behind this. According to CSDS-Lokniti, in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, BJP led NDA got 59% support of non-Yadav OBC votes, while India Alliance got 34% votes. NDA got 61% votes in Kurmi-Koeri community. However, compared to 2019, BJP’s support among these sections has decreased slightly. In the year 2019, 80% of the votes of Kurmi-Koeri category and 72% of non-Yadav OBC were with the BJP alliance.

The BJP leadership seems to be working on a strategy to stop this decline and retain the non-Yadav backward classes firmly with itself. This is the reason why backward classes have been given adequate space in key positions in the new team.

Dalit vote bank is also an important part of BJP’s strategy. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, only 24% votes of the Jatav community went to NDA, while 44% votes went to BSP. On the other hand, among the non-Jatav Dalit class, NDA got 29% support, while India Alliance got 56% votes. These figures are a matter of concern for BJP because a large part of non-Jatav Dalits were with BJP in the assembly elections of 2017 and 2022.

In the 2022 assembly elections, BJP got 41% votes of other scheduled castes, while Samajwadi Party alliance got 23% votes. For this reason, the party is trying to maintain this social base by giving representation to the Scheduled Caste community in the organization.

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Upper caste vote bank is the strength of BJP but…

The upper caste vote bank remains the biggest strength of BJP. In the year 2024 Lok Sabha elections, 79% votes of upper castes went in favor of NDA. In the 2022 assembly elections, the BJP alliance got 89% votes of Brahmins, 87% of Rajputs, 83% of Vaishyas and 78% of other upper caste groups. This is the reason why the party has given adequate representation to the upper caste leaders in its new team so that no dissatisfaction arises in the traditional vote bank.

Interestingly, BJP’s strategy appears to be different regarding Yadav and Muslim vote banks. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, 82% of the votes of Yadavs and 92% of Muslims went with the India Alliance. In the 2022 assembly elections also, Samajwadi Party alliance got 83% votes of Yadavs and 79% votes of Muslims. In such a situation, instead of making a big dent in these sections, BJP’s priority seems to be to further strengthen its alliance of non-Yadav OBC, non-Jatav Dalit and upper caste votes.

The formation of the new state team is being seen in the context of this social and electoral mathematics. The balance of OBC, Dalit and upper caste leadership in the organization shows that in the election battle of 2027, BJP wants to further strengthen the same social equation which has given it an edge in the politics of Uttar Pradesh in the last decade. Now it remains to be seen how effective this new social balance of the organization proves to be in the electoral arena.