Can SP-RLD alliance challenge BJP’s dominance in 58 assembly seats in phase-1 of UP polls?

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has wielded unprecedented power in the 58 assembly seats of Western Uttar Pradesh. Will the SP-RLD alliance, on the other hand, challenge the BJP's hegemony?

Once upon a time, every top political contender in Western Uttar Pradesh had their pocket of influence. Back then, a graphical representation of the vote-share would give an impression of a fractured polity with mainstream parties getting 10 to 30 per cent of the total votes.

That has since changed. Since the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has dominated the 58 Western Uttar Pradesh Assembly seats like never before.

In the three elections since 2014, two Lok Sabha elections and one assembly election, the BJP has been notching up a formidable vote share: in excess of 45 per cent. And the party has been leading in an overwhelming majority of Assembly segments.

In the last Assembly polls, the BJP won three constituencies with a margin in excess of one lakh votes, and eight constituencies with a margin in excess of 70,000 votes. And of the five seats the BJP lost in the region, the margin of victory in two places was less than 5,000 votes.

Read | What makes Yogi Adityanath's Gorakhpur Urban a BJP bastion in Uttar Pradesh election

Can the newly minted alliance between the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) then put up a fight this time?

On the basis of their performance in the 2017 assembly elections, an alliance would have meant an addition of five more seats to their kitty. The SP and the RLD then had modest vote shares of 13 and seven per cent respectively. The BJP’s share was an impressive 46 per cent. Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), on the other hand, had obtained 22 per cent of the votes.