Road to Delhi begins in Lucknow

Uttar Pradesh has always been very important in India?s

politics, in terms of the number of MPs it sends to Parliament every five years, and now investors are looking at UP in terms of what it means for the future of India?s economic reforms and the change in alliances that could take place at the Centre after the UP elections.

UP sends 81 lawmakers to the lower house (Lok Sabha) of Parliament, or about 15% of the total seats. Moreover, the UP elections will have a significant impact on the Indian politics, which will give us a sense of idea about the 2014 general elections.

On the economic front, UP is the largest economy of North India and the second-largest economy of India. In terms of share, UP accounts for about 17% of India?s population, 8% of national income and around 4% of total household savings. While other states from the BIMARU group are looking better, UP has the dubious distinction of having the highest number of poor families in the country.

But while thinking about UP, it is a bad idea to think of the state in a disaggregated manner, given its geographical spread. The National Sample Survey divides contiguous districts of the state into four regions namely western, central, eastern and southern regions having similar geographical features, rural population densities and cropping pattern.

The western region of the state is better off, probably because of its close proximity to the national capital. The spillover advantages are tremendous and the growth of satellite towns is phenomenal. The region is also more urbanised, has a higher standard of living and thus has a smaller section of its population characterised as ?below poverty line?. The eastern region, on the other hand, is the most densely populated region with the lowest level of urbanisation. The difference in the household income/expenditure is starkly skewed in favour of the western region, with little or no difference between the other regions. In depth analysis of the educational and occupational profiles of households in the regions reveal further differences. These differences also have a bearing on the election results. The educated urbanised are more likely to be attuned to the happenings in the country. They are more likely to vote on the issues of governance and corruption and are less likely to be swayed by caste and religious appeals.

Will that mean more attention to populist schemes and whatever political capital the government can muster will be spent on pushing through the controversial right to food, hoping it would do what MGNREGA did for them in 2009?

The UP elections must also be seen in the context of two other events that have unfolded over the recent past. Many labelled Nitish Kumar?s resounding victory in Bihar as a vote for development. It marked the decline of an era where elections were contested purely on caste and religious lines, where pandering to sentiments of certain groups were the norm. While Nitish?s victory was a clever mix of development and social engineering, no one doubts that the overwhelming majority he received was a result of the electorates? aspiration to be part of the India growth. Many political analysts hoped that the electoral success of development as a platform against caste politics is a new era in Indian politics.

It is important in this context to look at how different caste groups fare in UP (see table). Despite all the focus on SC in the state, SC/STs in UP have a per capita income of just R6,870 per year as compared to R11,422 in Punjab and R12,270 in Gujarat.

The same applies to all other social groups. In other words, the level of industrialisation and overall development of a state matters more for each social group compared to the degree of reservations. Whether UP?s voters will keep this in mind in the ongoing assembly elections is the question that will be tested.

Another significant event occurring in this interregnum was the Anna Hazare movement against corruption. The movement, despite its shortcomings, was successful in galvanising millions on a subject that receives only lip service. While the subject is of tremendous national importance and has been repeatedly raked up by political parties, its electoral efficacy was severely limited. However, the outpouring of support across the country in support of Anna led many to hope that politics would not be the same. Taken together, these two events did portend well for Indian democracy and politics. Many hope that the state of UP, which is the worst-performing state according to various socio-economic indicators, would reject the conventional faultiness of caste and religion around which elections were contested and, like its eastern neighbour, embrace the path of development and good governance.

While opinion polls conducted before the Bihar elections had predicted the return of Nitish Kumar, few predicted the magnitude of victory. There was a sense in the air that politics in Bihar had turned decisively for the best. In UP, there is ominous silence.

The author is an independent consumer economy expert