Battleground Bundelkhand: Where Hindutva, caste dynamics, development promises rule the poll arena

In the rich tapestry of Bundelkhand’s political history, one undeniable fact emerges: the region has consistently offered its wholehearted support to the political entities it has believed in.

From the days when the Congress held sway to the era that heralded the rise of ‘Lal Salaam’ in the region’s quest for equitable representation for its vast population of Dalits and backward communities.

The narrative then took a pivotal turn in the early 90s when Kanshi Ram’s social justice found a fertile ground there and his Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) became a major force to reckon with. Kanshi Ram’s politics of “pachasi banam pandrah (85% Dalits and backward communities versus 15% upper caste population)” solidified Bundelkhand as a BSP stronghold.

The Samajwadi Party too has found some resonance in this region with 19 assembly constituencies and four Lok Sabha seats (in the seven U.P. districts).

Over the past decade, however, Bundelkhand has embraced the BJP, which won all four Lok Sabha seats in 2019, and all 19 assembly seats in 2017 and 16 in 2022.

The BJP, which started off with its Hindutva bandwagon in this region in the 90s, faced a rout in 1993 due to Kanshi Ram and Mulayam Singh Yadav’s experimental alliance to bring Dalits and backward communities together.

The BSP reigned supreme in the Bundelkhand politics before the BJP brought in an aggressive mix of its Hindutva politics in this religiously significant region and a slew of welfare and developmental projects 2014 onwards.

In 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, describing his special relationship with Bundelkhand, launched the party’s U.P. election campaign from Mahoba with a ‘parivartan’ rally. This was the first time a prime minister was visiting one of the most backward regions of the country, which led to the BJP sweeping all 19 assembly seats, a feat no other party has ever achieved.

The BSP’s best-ever tally was in 2007 when it won 14 seats. The SP’s best figure was seven seats in 2012.

In 2019, the Prime Minister launched his party’s campaign for U.P. from Mahoba again--this time he was armed with a number of key projects he lined up. Water projects worth ₹3,240 crore, which were schemed to provide piped water to 4.30 lakh families in Hamirpur, Mahoba, Banda and Lalitpur districts, were among them.

After Mahoba, it was Jhansi’s turn. There, he laid the foundation stone for a Bharat Dynamics missile plant, a ₹400 crore project in the Jhansi node of the Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor. He venerated the roles of Rani Laxmi Bai, Avanti Bai and Uda Devi in the freedom struggle to gain more acceptance within the Thakur, Lodhi and Pasi communities.

This general elections, the BJP’s effective mix of Hindutva and caste development politics is up against the 1993 experiment. The SP, which is leading the INDIA bloc in Uttar Pradesh, meanwhile is banking on its PDA (Pichda-Dalit-Alpsankhyak) formula to turn the tables on the BJP.

Caste equation on focus

From the point of caste matrix, Bundelkhand has 25% Dalit, 35% other backward caste, 16% Muslim and 24% upper caste population in the four Lok Sabha constituencies of Jhansi-Lalitpiur, Banda-Chitrakoot, Jalaun-Garautha and Hamirpur-Mahoba.

Ram Lal Jayan, a political observer who closely worked with Kanshi Ram as a teenager in the Banda-Chitrakoot belt, said the region was extremely backward with most farmers owning small land holdings.

To stay firm in the saddle, the BJP has been regularly working on the social equation within the party. A Kurmi from Jalaun, Swatantra Dev Singh was made the party’s state president, Bhanu Pratap Varma, a five-time MP, was named a minister and Prakash Pal was appointed the party’s president for the Kanpur-Bundelkhand region in the place of Manvendra Singh, a Thakur.

Even as chief minister Yogi Adityanath developed Chitrakoot as an important cog of religious circuit, Bundelkhand Industrial Development Authority (BIDA) was constituted for accelerated development.

The 296-km-long Bundelkhand Expressway was completed ahead of the 2022 elections with Prime Minister Modi inaugurating it from the Jalaun side. Adityanath, in his last five Bundelkhand outings, made a rallying point of turning Jhansi a Noida-like city.

Not to be missed is the state’s push to make Bundelkhand a solar power hub--at least 10 projects are underway in and around Jhansi. These are apart from the ongoing water-related projects worth ₹20,000 crore.

BJP’s Prakash Pal said Bundelkhand could no longer be seen from the prism of being a backward region as the region is on a development fast-track.

The SP, meanwhile, which has struggled to create a base beyond its Yadav vote-bank, has reached out to the non-Yadav OBC, SC and ST voters as well. Before the party decided on tickets, top leaders were sent to the four Lok Sabha seats to sense the political feel on the ground.

The party has fielded a Dalit from Jalaun, a Lodhi from Hamirpur and a Patel from the Banda-Chitrakoot seat. The Jhansi seat has gone to its alliance partner, the Congress, which has fielded its old guard Pradeep Jain Aditya. The SP’s strategy is to continue its 2022 plan of eating into the BSP’s local leaderships to make the PDA work. While the SP won three seats in the assembly elections that year, the BSP failed to open its account.

National president of the SP’s youth wing Dr Imran, who was in Bundelkhand, said, “The BJP only sang more, did little for the region. The water problem is still not mitigated, and Dalit, backward and farmer subaltern communities are badly affected.”

“We are running campaigns about the wrong policies of the present government and telling people how well the SP government handled the Bundelkhand issues from 2012 to 2017. All water reservoirs were resurrected and made operational,” he said.

BSP losing ground; statehood to hilly region

The BSP has found itself becoming a footnote in a region it dominated till 2012. Arvind Srivastava, a retired principal of a Banda college, said the BSP disintegrated with the departure of leaders like Nasimuddin Siddiqui, Babu Lal Kushwaha, Braj Lal Khabri and Daddu Prasad, leading to its marginalisation.

The party has fielded two Brahmins from Hamirpur and Banda constituencies, an OBC from Jhansi and a Dalit from the Jalaun reserved seat. Bhanu Sahai, a political observer from Jhansi, said the BSP was hoping that its lower caste-upper caste gamble would work again in Bundekhand. “While BSP candidates did well in the last panchayat elections, this one (Lok Sabha polls) is a different ballgame altogether,” he said.

“It has been organising Prabuddh Varg meets since 2022 to woo Brahmins who constitute 11% of the total electorates. The BSP hasn’t changed its 2022 strategy at all,” he said.

Meanwhile, BSP chief Mayawati, on Tuesday, raised the sensitive issue of statehood to the hilly region. “If our government is formed (at the Centre), we will take positive steps in this regard. Bundelkhand will definitely be made a separate state,” she said at an election rally in Jhansi.

Reduced to a non-entity with no organisational structure left in the region barring in Jhansi, the Congress is banking on the Kurmi voters to gain ground in Bundelkhand, Fatehpur and Kaushambi.

Former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel attempted to reach out to the Kurmis to make a dent in the BJP vote bank. Baghel, even after losing elections in his home state, has been active in Bundelkhand, which he said led the way to power.