Women voters fuel Modi-Yogi engine in Uttar Pradesh

For the Bharatiya Janata Party one of the passages to a grand victory in Uttar Pradesh passed through the kitchens manned by crores of women Analysts in UP say that while other parties fought in the streets the BJP led by ModiYogi impressed the female voters with welfare schemes such as supplying ration and cooking gas and housingThe partyrsquos womenrsquos wing worked seamlessly to win the hearts of women making the footprints of the government schemes thicker in their mind As a result the BJP walked away with 16 per cent more womenrsquos vote share than its close rival the Samajwadi Party Priyanka Gandhi Vadra changed the Congressrsquos poll strategy to give 40 per cent representation to women through the lsquoLadki Hun Lad Sakti Hun Irsquom a woman and I can fightrsquo campaign but it ended up in a disasterUPrsquos male voters have weighed between the BJP and SP because the difference between the menrsquos vote share is just four per cent points Boothwise polling figures suggest the BJP and its allies won some seats in the Muslimdominated segments because the women preferred them over of the SP and Bahujan Samaj Party BSP On its way to the 2022 elections the Yogi government gave women the ownership of the houses built under the prime minister and chief minister housing schemes Women were relieved when 167 crore cooking gas connections were given free of cost and 261 crore toilets were built so they wonrsquot have to use the insecure open fields During the COVID19 pandemic the quota of governmentprovided ration was doubledLocal experts say with welfare schemes delivered to the doorsteps it was time for the BJP to convince the beneficiaries into voting for its candidates Other parties too appealed to the women voters in their campaigns but couldnrsquot beat the advantage the BJP had The BJP devised an exclusive plan to use the partyrsquos women workers to reach out to the women voters In each Assembly segment a 100member team from the partyrsquos womenrsquos wing was pressed into service Some 600 women from other states joined the effort They connected with the voters through mahila sammelans mehendi gatherings rangoli competition and play card abhiyaan The connection worked well against the Congressrsquos womencentred campaign The contribution of women voters was widely recognised by both PM Narendra Modi and CM Yogi AdityanathCongress relied on Priyanka who had led the party in 2017rsquos prepoll alliance with the SP The poor results have thrown the party into an existential crisis It won only two seats out of 399 contested It lost deposit in 387 seats 97 per cent which is the second after the Independents 997 per cent The BJP lost deposit in three seats of 376 the SP in six of 347 and the BSP in 290 of 403 The outcome proved that the Congress fared better in alliance with the SP while the BSP couldnrsquot stop the Muslim voters from going to the SP and others especially the backward classes to the BJP The bipolar elections avoided the division of votes this increasing the respective vote shares of the close rivals However their increased vote shares did not augment the number of seatsThe LoknitiCSDS poll survey which was released on Saturday confirmed the local expertsrsquo viewpoint It said a new group of beneficiaries of welfare schemes have emerged for the ruling coalition irrespective of caste and religious considerations The Ram Mandir and Hindutva issues found favour only among 2 per cent of the responders and so is the case with the issue of stray animal menace raised prominently by the opponents to have the Yogi government worried it added The SPrsquos Hindu vote share increased as compared to the 2017 polls it said adding that the BJPled coalition secured 13 percentage point lead over the SP among the voters belonging to farming households and the ruling partyrsquos support among SCs has also increasedIn terms of the Modi governmentrsquos effectiveness in retaining the four states including UP where the party broke a 37year jinx that didnrsquot allow a government to come to power backtoback the local viewpoint differs from the Lokniti surveyrsquos finding The local experts say the people were satisfied with the Centre and state government Probably they were more satisfied with Adityanath for delivering the central schemes without the red tape The survey says the people were satisfied with the Centre more than the state governmentDharmendra Jore is political editor midday He tweets dharmendrajoreSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycom