Lok Sabha election 2024 – TheNewsHub

Women voters: New political powerhouse?

Aseem — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 04:56:00 +0000

The recent electoral outcomes in Jharkhand and Maharashtra, two very different geographical terrains, reveal three common factors. First, in both States the incumbent alliances won by a huge margin. Second, despite poor performances in the Lok Sabha election held six months earlier, the ruling alliances in both States staged a dramatic recovery in the Assembly elections. Third, they benefited significantly from the implementation of women-centric direct cash transfer schemes, particularly the Mukhyamantri Maiya Samman Yojana offering Rs.1,000 a month in Jharkhand and the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana providing Rs.1,500 a month in Maharashtra.

Significantly, Jharkhand and Maharashtra are not the first States to implement cash transfer schemes for women. It started in West Bengal in 2021, just a few months before the Assembly election. In the 2023 Karnataka election, the Congress promised a similar scheme called the Gruha Lakshmi Scheme. The party that promised or implemented the scheme first reaped the electoral benefits.

Also Read | The myth of the ‘women vote bank’

Does this mean that women vote as a distinct electoral constituency? Do women vote more for parties that deliver or promise economic incentives specifically for them? There are indications that unlike in the past, financial assistance has helped mobilise women politically, with large-scale cash transfers or other women-centric schemes enabling them to discuss governance at home and in society.

The history of women’s participation in elections suggests three trends. First, their participation has increased tremendously. The voter turnout of men and women is now almost equal, after continuously showing a double-digit gap in the initial few decades of Independence.

At a polling booth in Sarauli village of Ghaziabad constituency in Uttar Pradesh in April 2019. Since 2014, the women’s turnout has been above 65 per cent.
| Photo Credit:
MOORTHY RV

Second, although their participation has increased, women voters’ choices have not differed significantly from that of their male counterparts. In other words, the voting patterns of women have largely been the same as that of their male counterparts.

Third, although women’s participation has increased significantly, this change has been driven from the top and not the bottom. This means that, rather than women making specific demands of political parties, the parties themselves have been wooing them with economic incentives.

Frontline addresses these three basic questions and traces how the woman voter has emerged as a mobilising factor in elections across India.

Electoral participation

In the past two Lok Sabha elections, the male and female turnout was equal; however, the journey to reach this point has been long. In the 1957 Lok Sabha election, only 39 per cent of women voted compared with 56 per cent of men. In 2024, the turnout of both men and women had risen to 66 per cent (see Chart 1). Since 1962, the male turnout has been continuously above 60 per cent, but the female turnout did not surpass the 60 per cent mark until the 1998 Lok Sabha election.

Since 2014, the women’s turnout has been above 65 per cent. Although women’s participation has steadily increased over the years, there have been a few occasions when it increased significantly: 1977, 1984, 1998, and 2014. Except in 1984, when the sympathy wave following the death of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi played a role, the incumbent party has lost power in all other occasions.

Women’s mobilisation in the Indian electoral system has been a top-down phenomenon, with them responding to political leaders and parties making promises or decisions in favour of women; women have not made any aggressive demands of the state. In the 1970s and 1980s, a period of rights-based movements across the world, the major demand from women in India was for suraksha (safety) from crimes such as rape. As such, for a long time, politicians and parties focussed on public safety to win women over. Parties such as the Janata Dal (United) in Bihar and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh focussed on law and order issues to gain women’s support.

In 2007, Nitish Kumar launched the Mukhyamantri Balika Cycle Yojana providing free bicycles to every girl child in class IX to prevent them from dropping out of school after a certain age. In the picture, beneficiaries of the scheme on the outskirts of Patna in 2018.
| Photo Credit:
RANJEET KUMAR

From 2005 to 2020, State and Central governments began to prioritise women’s education and health along with safety. Leaders such as M.G. Ramachandran (MGR) and Jayalalithaa (Tamil Nadu), Nitish Kumar (Bihar), Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal), and Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh) focussed on increasing the enrolment of girls in schools and on women’s health, especially in reducing mortality among girl children. In 1982, as Chief Minister, MGR targeted mothers by promising nutrition in schools and encouraging them to enroll their children. This he did by extending the noon-meal scheme that had existed in some form since the 1920s to cover children in the age group of 2-5 years in anganwadis and those aged 5-9 years in primary schools in rural areas.

Bihar, Odisha, and West Bengal followed suit and implemented many schemes to promote the girl child and increase their enrolment in schools. In 2007, Nitish Kumar launched the Mukhyamantri Balika Cycle Yojana providing free bicycles to every girl child in class IX to prevent girl students from dropping out of school after a certain age.

Nitish Kumar went on to launch the Mukhyamantri Kanya Utthan Yojana in 2018 providing Rs.1,000 to every girl completing class XII, Rs.50,000 upon graduation, and Rs.2,000 for sanitary napkins annually. He also banned the use of alcohol in Bihar, which helped him win the election. In the tightly contested Assembly election in 2020, it was women voters who helped him overcome a huge anti-incumbency wave.

A survey conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in 2020 shows that although the Mahagathbandhan, led by the Rashtriya Janata Dal, had a 1 percentage point lead over the Nitish Kumar-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) among men, Nitish Kumar had a 2 percentage point lead among women voters. Another significant data point suggests that the Mahagathbandhan had a 6 percentage point edge among youths (aged 18-29 years), while the NDA had a 4 percentage point edge among young women. According to a news report, there was a 5 percentage point lead for the NDA among women aged 30-39 years (The Indian Express, November 19, 2020).

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at an event to mark 10 years of Kanyashree Prakalpa, a flagship scheme of the Trinamool Congress government for girl empowerment.
| Photo Credit:
DEBASISH BHADURI

Similarly, in West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee launched schemes such as the Kanyashree Prakalpa (2013), the Rupashree Prakalpa (2018), and the Lakshmir Bhandar (2021) targeting women voters. In the 2021 Assembly election, women supported Mamata overwhelmingly; the BJP could not depose the Trinamool government despite its good performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. The CSDS post-election data reveal that the Trinamool Congress had a 13 percentage point lead over the BJP among women. Even in the 2021 election, 4 per cent more women voted for the Trinamool than men.

At the national level, the Narendra Modi government also launched schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (2014), the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (2016), and the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (2017) to assist and empower women.

Significantly, the focus of political parties in the past few years has shifted from safety and schooling to financial assistance schemes. The main trigger for the BJP to turn its attention to financial assistance was the NYAY (Nyuntam Aay Yojana) schemes the Congress party promised in the 2019 Lok Sabha election to provide poor households with financial assistance of Rs.72,000 annually.

Highlights

Women’s electoral participation has increased significantly, with voter turnout now almost equal to that of men. In some States, women even outnumber men at polling booths, reflecting a steady rise in their engagement with electoral democracy.
Political parties have increasingly used women-centric welfare schemes to mobilise women voters. The Mukhyamantri Maiya Samman Yojana in Jharkhand and the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana in Maharashtra helped the incumbent governments reap electoral benefits.
Increased participation of women in electoral politics signals anew democratic upsurge, which will shift the political discourse from being male-dominated to being more equitable. However, women have to begin to vote on the pressing issues that concern them for real woman-oriented polity.

It was the Jan-Dhan scheme that enabled even the poor to open bank accounts with minimum requirements, thus paving the way for large-scale cash transfers by the government. In the past, incentives or subsidies were common strategies. For instance, Jayalalithaa was renowned for announcing schemes during election campaigns, like free mixer grinders or a 50 per cent subsidy for buying mopeds, which helped her garner significant electoral support from women.

From 2019 onwards, across parties, governments have increasingly announced direct cash transfers. The BJP, which had proclaimed that it was reluctant to increase the economic burden on the exchequer, was the first to launch such schemes. Just a few months before the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Modi announced the Kisan Samman Nidhi providing financial assistance to farmers. Later, the BJP-led government in Haryana announced the Berojgari Bhatta Yojana providing an unemployment allowance to educated women—a monthly allowance of Rs.1,500 for graduates and Rs.3,000 for postgraduates.

Why target women?

In 1962, women made up only 40 per cent of the total voters. Even in the 1998 Lok Sabha election, this rose to 45 per cent. The gender gap was in double digits (10 per cent) until 2004, but since 2009 it has changed significantly, and the gap has narrowed steadily. In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the gap was reduced to just 1 per cent (see Chart 2).

Chart 2 suggests that not only women’s turnout during elections but also women’s participation in elections has increased significantly in the past two decades, bringing their numbers close to that of men. Expectedly, the growth rate of women voters in recent years has surpassed that of men. In the last two Lok Sabha elections, the growth rate of women was 2 percentage points more than men (see Chart 3).

Overall, there has been an increase in enrolment in electoral rolls, the growth rate of women voters, and their turnout. In some States, women have outnumbered men in polling booths. These three data points suggest that women are more active during elections than in the past. The drivers of this change could be many: increased women’s representation at local levels of governance, initiatives such as SVEEP (Systematic Voter’s Education and Electoral Participation) led by the Election Commission of India, and the transactional benefits inherent in the process. All these appear to have attracted more women to participate in electoral democracy.

Since women’s share is almost half of the total electorate, a few percentage points inclination towards any political party/alliance could lead to a significant change in the electoral outcome.

Conclusion

As their numbers increase, the influence of women voters is likely to grow significantly. The results suggest that women prioritise transactional benefits and do not carry any ideological burden. However, it would be a mistake to interpret this to mean they have no interest in the politics of identity. They seem to respond positively to cash benefits, which is why welfare schemes have yielded electoral dividends for parties.

In India’s highly patriarchal society, any kind of direct cash transfer empowers women. And the digitisation measures have enabled all political parties to reach women beneficiaries directly, without the help of male intermediaries.

In the 2015 Bihar Assembly election, for instance, this writer met a female senior citizen in Saharsha who said she would vote for Nitish Kumar as he had provided Rs.500 a month as old-age pension. This meant, she said, that she did not have to depend on her son to eat bari (fried savoury).

Also Read | Editor’s Note: The Machiavellian manipulation of mahila schemes

In another instance, during this writer’s fieldwork in the 2024 Jharkhand Assembly election, a woman in her early 30s said she had voted for Modi in the Lok Sabha election as she had eaten Modi ka ration (5 kg free grain) but that in the Assembly election she would vote for Hemant Soren, who had delivered Rs.1,000 under the Maiya Samman scheme.

Jayalalithaa introduced schemes aimed at women like free mixer-grinders and 50 per cent subsidy for buying mopeds. In picture, a beneficiary with a moped given by the State government.
| Photo Credit:
SATHYAMOORTHY M

Any benefit that targets women empowers them economically, politically, and socially. The 73rd Constitutional Amendment gave one-third (in some places 50 per cent) reservation for women in panchayats, the one-third reservation in jobs (for example, Bihar), and now the cash transfer schemes have empowered women in several, often undocumented, ways. These have given women a new yardstick with which to evaluate parties rather than fall back on communal and identity-based sentiments. However, it is still not clear whether they vote as a bloc or along traditional caste and community lines.

The caveat is that increased cash transfers will lead to an increased financial burden on the exchequer, with all parties trying to up the ante. This is not a long-term sustainable plan and will invariably benefit the incumbent government, which holds the purse strings, the most.

Of course, the larger trend—that of increased participation of women in electoral politics—signals a new democratic upsurge, which will shift the political discourse from being male-dominated to being more equitable. However, it is only when women begin to vote on the pressing issues that concern them that we will see a real woman-oriented polity.

Ashish Ranjan is an election researcher and co-founder of the Data Action Lab for Emerging Societies (DALES).

BJP returns to Ma-Dha-Va formula as Maratha-OBC polarisation threatens its Assembly prospects

Aseem — Mon, 11 Nov 2024 10:55:36 +0000

Before the formation of the BJP in 1980, the Congress dominated Maharashtra’s politics with the formidable support of Marathas, Dalits, Kunbis, tribal people, and Muslims. The appeal of the BJP’s predecessor, the Jana Sangh, was limited to Brahmins and, very nominally, some other castes. In order to break this equation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological parent of the saffron parties, decided to change tack. It brought its ideologue and full-time member Vasantrao Bhagwat to the helm of organisational affairs in the State. Bhagwat, a Brahmin from Ratnagiri district of the Konkan region, was asked to make the BJP a statewide party. Towards this, he introduced the Ma-Dha-Va formula.

Ma-Dha-Va is a Marathi acronym for Mali (gardener), Dhangar (shepherd), and Vanjari (a semi-nomadic caste from Marathwada). Bhagwat understood the crux of the politics of the time: the Marathas, the State’s ruling caste, which accounted for 32 per cent of the population, made up the majority of the Congress vote bank. The BJP had little scope for getting Muslims, Dalits, and tribal people into its fold. What remained were the smaller castes, which had no political representation in the Congress.

Those were the days of the Mandal Commission (its recommendations were submitted in 1980), which laid emphasis on the “Other Backward Classes”. With many smaller communities eyeing OBC status, Bhagwat focussed on the Malis, Dhangars, and Vanjaris, which were the dominant communities in that category. Thus emerged the first generation of BJP leaders in Maharashtra: N.S. Farande (Mali), Anna Dange (Dhangar), and Gopinath Munde (Vanjari).

The BJP’s strategy to consolidate the non-Maratha smaller castes, or OBCs, paid off. It helped the party expand its influence among the Bahujan. The term “Bahujan” was in use a thousand years ago in the Pali language to describe the non-elite classes. In modern India, the social reformer Jyotirao Phule, himself from the Mali community, used it in his path-breaking essay on the history of non-Brahmins. Babasaheb Ambedkar expanded the concept further in his works.

Also Read | Maharashtra Assembly Election 2024: The talking heads

Bhagwat’s outreach gave the BJP, hitherto known as a Brahmin-dominated party, a Bahujan tag. In 2024, following the defeat of the Mahayuti (grand alliance) led by it in the Lok Sabha election held in April-May, and with the Maratha reservation movement emerging as a dominant political issue, the party has returned to the social engineering days of the Ma-Dha-Va formula to save the day.

The Maratha reservation demand

The Maratha reservation demand is not new, but it gained fresh momentum under the leadership of Manoj Jarange-Patil. On October 1, 2023, following a police lathicharge on protesters that Jarange-Patil led in the Jalna district of Marathwada, the agitation for Maratha reservation turned violent for the first time in its 20-year history (“Maratha quota agitation: A cat among the pigeons”, Frontline, published online on November 11, 2023).

Manoj Jarange Patil with Chief Minister Eknath Shinde after announcing an end to the protests when the government agreed to accept his demands, in Mumbai on January 27.
| Photo Credit:
ANI

The protest by the dominant community of Marathas put pressure on the State government. Jarange-Patil’s demand was to include the Marathas from the Marathwada region in the Kunbi category. The Kunbi community, which is predominant in the Vidarbha region, comes under the OBC category. In a way, Jarange-Patil was demanding OBC status for the Marathas too. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde accepted his demand and announced a committee headed by a retired judge to look into it.

At this point, the government faced a backlash from the OBCs in the State, who were against sharing the space with the Marathas. In late 2023, Chhagan Bhujbal, a Cabinet Minister in the Shinde government, opposed the government decision publicly. He addressed rallies in Marathwada, where the Maratha reservation issue was central to the political discourse. Jarange-Patil’s rallies demanding Kunbi status for Marathas and Bhujbal’s rallies opposing it split the State vertically along caste lines.

The BJP was already in trouble because of careless remarks made by its members ahead of the Lok Sabha election that the party wanted a three-fourths majority in Parliament in order to change the Constitution. This angered Dalits; Muslims were already preparing for tactical voting, and tribal communities were exploring alternatives after incidents of atrocities against them in Manipur and Madhya Pradesh. With the Maratha bloc also turning against it, the Mahayuti won only 17 seats in Maharashtra as against the Maha Vikas Aghadi’s (MVA) 31. This prompted the BJP to introspect.

Interestingly, the plot thickened soon after the Lok Sabha election results were announced when a protest by Lakshman Hake and Navnath Waghmare on June 13 over the dilution of the OBC quota grabbed the headlines. The protest venue was Vadi Godri village in Ambad tehsil of Jalna district, barely 4 km from Jarange-Patil’s village and his protest venue at Antarvali Sarathi.

Hake was a little-known OBC leader who contested the Lok Sabha election from the Madha constituency and secured just 5,134 votes. He comes from the Dhangar community, a large section of which has been demanding reservation under the Scheduled Tribes category. He highlighted a promise made by the BJP in 2014 to give the community reservation under the ST status if it came to power. Hake’s protest against the inclusion of Marathas in the Kunbi category saying that it will reduce the existing share of OBCs resonated among members of the latter.

Highlights

In the 1980s, RSS ideologue Vasantrao Bhagwat introduced the Ma-Dha-Va formula, a Marathi acronym for Mali (gardener), Dhangar (shepherd), and Vanjari (a semi-nomadic caste from Marathwada), to consolidate non-Maratha smaller castes (OBCs) expanded its influence among the Bahujan.

In 2024, following the defeat of the Mahayuti in the Lok Sabha election, and with the Maratha reservation movement emerging as a dominant political issue, the party has returned to the social engineering days of the Ma-Dha-Va formula to save the day.

Maharashtra has around 100 Assembly seats where Maratha voters constitute 25 to 40 per cent, 40 constituencies where Kunbi voters constitute 20 to 30 per cent, and around 35 constituencies where non-Kunbi OBC voters make up 20 to 30 per cent.

The Lok Sabha results came as a shocker not just to the Mahayuti, which won just one of the eight seats in the Marathwada region, but to the OBCs too. Two OBC leaders, Mahadev Jankar of the Dhangar community and Pankaja Munde of the Vanjari community, lost the elections from Parbhani and Beed, respectively. In this context, Hake’s protest became immediately popular among OBC youth. Over the past three months, a perception has been created that Hake has consolidated OBC support across the State.

Hake has asked his supporters to defeat the “wrong candidates”, specifically naming Rajesh Tope and Rohit Pawar, both MLAs of the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) faction, which is a constituent of the MVA along with the Congress and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena faction.

Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar during a joint press conference at Silver Oak in Mumbai on November 5.
| Photo Credit:
ANI

Meanwhile, in the Maratha camp, Jarange-Patil, who had refused to contest the Lok Sabha election on the grounds that he would not enter electoral politics, was under pressure to field candidates for the Assembly election. He held talks with Muslim leaders, mainly the Islamic scholar Sajjad Nomani, with a view to fielding joint candidates in a few seats. But, by the morning of November 4, Jarange Patil seemed to realise that by doing so he would be dividing the Maratha vote, which would ultimately help the BJP. He decided not to contest the election and asked his supporters “to vote for anyone of their choice while keeping the community’s interests in mind”.

A clear picture emerges

From the outset, Jarange-Patil was seen as a front for the NCP (Sharad Pawar). Many BJP MLCs such as Pravin Darekar, Sadabhau Khot, and Prasad Lad had called him a mask for Pawar. The tallest Maratha leader in the State, Pawar was widely believed to be the hand behind the Maratha movement. However, with Jarange-Patil appealing to his supporters to defeat the BJP’s candidates and Hake asking his followers to defeat Pawar’s candidates, the picture is beginning to get clearer in Maharashtra.

Given the widespread opinion that a Jat-versus-non-Jat binary helped the BJP retain Haryana for a third consecutive time in the recently held Assembly election, it seems likely that the Maharashtra election is being worked along the same lines.

The BJP has tasted success with its social engineering formula on many occasions. In 2016, when Devendra Fadnavis was Chief Minister, the Maratha community hit the streets in large numbers over the sexual abuse of a Maratha girl from Ahmednagar (now Ahilya Nagar) district. The community held 52 rallies across the State, which were seen as attempts by the opposition parties to stir public sentiment against the BJP. At that time too the BJP’s strategy of consolidating non-Maratha Hindu votes in the State paid off. Within four months, in the local body elections (2016-17), the BJP emerged a clear winner, securing almost 200 municipal councils of 320 and 21 municipalities of 26.

Also Read | This battle is for the soul of Maharashtra: Balasaheb Thorat

Political observers, however, point to one difference between 2017 and 2024. Jaydeo Dole, a senior journalist from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, said: “In 2017, the BJP’s novelty factor under Prime Minister Modi was intact. Also, Dalits and tribal people were not a part of the anti-BJP consolidation at that time. This time, Dalits, Muslims, and tribal people are strongly against the BJP. That is why the 2017 non-Maratha consolidation formula is no longer useful for the BJP.”

According to the 1931 Census, Marathas account for 32 per cent of the State’s population, with Dalits at 14 per cent, Muslims at 11.54 per cent, and tribal communities at 9.35 per cent. Although OBC leaders claim that they constitute 54 per cent of the population, there is no authentic data to substantiate this. However, it is clear that if the Maratha–Muslim–Dalit–Tribal consolidation takes place, accounting for more than 60 per cent of the population, any counter-consolidation will not work.

Members of the Vanjari community participating in a march demanding reservation under the Scheduled Tribes category, a September 2019 picture.
| Photo Credit:
The Hindu Archives

Recognising this, the BJP has focussed on consolidating OBCs along non-Maratha lines while still trying to get a big chunk of the Maratha vote. To achieve this, it has deployed its Maratha leaders to take aggressive stands on religious lines. Leaders such as Nitesh Rane and Pravin Darekar have been vocal on right-wing Hindutva issues, aiming to appeal to religious sentiments.

Another shrewd move by the BJP is to deploy its alliance partners strategically. Chief Minister Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, both Marathas, are campaigning in every constituency where the party has a Maratha candidate. Of the 152 seats the saffron party is contesting, it has given an almost equal number to OBCs (46) and Marathas (44), which shows its intent to avoid antagonising the Maratha community while appealing to the OBCs.

Maharashtra has around 100 Assembly seats where Maratha voters constitute 25 to 40 per cent, 40 constituencies where Kunbi voters constitute 20 to 30 per cent, and around 35 constituencies where non-Kunbi OBC voters make up 20 to 30 per cent. Polarisation along caste lines will matter in these 170 Assembly constituencies, a significant segment of the total 288 Assembly seats. The outcome of this election will depend solely on which caste consolidation strategy proves successful this time.

Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir Assembly elections: What worked and what didn’t

Aseem — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 13:51:29 +0000

WATCH | Saba Naqvi breaks down the Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir election results

Saba Naqvi discusses the electoral strategies adopted by various players, the saffron party’s electoral resurgence, and more.
| Video Credit:
Camera: Dipesh Arora; Editing: Samson Ronald K.; Produced By: Jinoy Jose P.

Last week, Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir wrapped up their Assembly elections. The BJP surprised everyone with a hat-trick victory in Haryana, while Kashmir made a statement on issues such as statehood by voting the INDIA bloc to power. Veteran journalist Saba Naqvi digs into the results for Frontline, spotlighting how the BJP, Congress, and local parties fared.

In this video, Naqvi unpacks the game plans each party used to woo voters. She sheds light on how caste still sways ballots and how parties juggle different social groups to win. Naqvi also tracks how these regions’ political sentiments are shifting. She zeroes in on the BJP’s hat-trick in Haryana and how the National Conference (NC)-Congress team scored in Kashmir but stumbled in Jammu. Naqvi ponders what these outcomes mean for the BJP’s standing across India. She also probes how Hindu nationalism continues to power the BJP’s moves in the Hindi belt.

Saba Naqvi is a Delhi based journalist and author of four books who writes on politics and identity issues.

Every one of us is a minority in this country: Yogendra Yadav, political activist, Swaraj India

Aseem — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 10:17:30 +0000

WATCH | Saba Naqvi in conversation with Yogendra Yadav

We are criminally guilty because we took our Constitution for granted, says the political activist and politician.
| Video Credit:
Interview by Saba Naqvi; Camera: Dipesh Arora; Production Assistants: Vitasta Kaul and Vedaant Lakhera; Editing by Samson Ronald K.; Produced by Jinoy Jose P.

In this wide-ranging and insightful interview, renowned political analyst and activist Yogendra Yadav offers a penetrating look at the current state of Indian politics and society. Speaking to Frontline, Yadav draws on his unique perspective as both a commentator and participant in the political process to analyse some of the most pressing issues facing India today.

In the 2024 general election, he was a phenomenal predictor of electoral outcome. “Indian society is a pyramid. The top of the pyramid has been captured by the BJP in terms of caste, class, and gender. The bottom of the pyramid is the biggest social force to defend the Constitution, republic, and democracy in the country. So future politics has to be politics of the bottom of the pyramid. BJP’s political strategy has been to capture the top of the pyramid and walk away with a few slices from the bottom,” he tells Frontline.

Saba Naqvi is a Delhi-based journalist and author of four books who writes on politics and identity issues.