High five for UP: 59% vote-ToI-24.2.12

Women & Youth Turn Up In Strength, Talk Of Development

Lucknow: The fifth phase of polling in UP followed the trend of the past four, with a robust 59.2% turnout which will make this a tough fight for both SP and BSP as Thursday’s polling covered the Yadav belt in the west and dalit-dominated Bundelkhand in the south. In 2007, the same districts saw 47.57% polling. 
    Polls were held in 49 constituencies across 13 districts. While five districts of Bundelkhand saw a four-cornered fight among BSP, SP, Congress and BJP, the prestige of SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav is at stake in the four districts of Etah, Etawah, Mainpuri and Firozabad. The three Central UP districts — Kanpur, Ramabainagar and Auraiya — have substantial brahmin and dalit populations and the contest here was mainly between the BJP, BSP and the Congress. 
    This time too, women and youngsters voted in large numbers. Although deep-rooted caste and community factors influenced voters to some extent, a strong anti-incumbency against the state and central governments as well as local MLAs and MPs was felt. The issues discussed were lack of basic amenities like bijli, sadak, pani, price rise, law and order, 4.5% sub-quota for Muslims and rampant corruption. 
    The factors responsible for the high turnout are said to be comparatively fewer anomalies in the voters’ list, anti-incumbency, pleasant weather and 100% turnout of the cadre of various political parties. All the major parties claimed the increase in turnout went in their favour. But people had a different take. Ranjit in Kanpur said people in his locality were voting against the sitting MLA who could not solve the drainage problem of the area during his five-year term. But for Shahi in Hamirpur, law and order was the major issue. 
    Political pundits said in 2007 the Yadav turnout was low in the SP stronghold because the community was angry with Mulayam for not fulfilling his promise of providing jobs. Similarly, in 2009, voting percentage of dalits came down because they were not happy with the prominence given to brahmins in the administration by Mayawati. But this time, political analysts felt, both the communities seem to have voted in large numbers for their parties in elections which are heading for a photo-finish.