Chetan Chauhan

The 2022 state polls is biggest election in the country after 2019 general elections in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi came back with a thumping majority. The elections to Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur --- which constitutes a little over one-fifth of the country’s population — comes at the time when Omicron variant of Covid-19 cases are surging and would be first electoral test for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after repeal of the three farm laws. BJP is ruling in four of the five election bound states.

The election results would tell us whether the BJP has overcome anger of farmers from Punjab, western Uttar Pradesh and plains of Uttarakhand by repealing the three farm laws, which the BJP leaders once claimed would ensure doubling of farmer’s income by 2022. Data suggests that India is nowhere close to doubling the farmer’s income. In fact, the profits from the farm sector has almost remained stagnant primarily due to rising inputs costs of fertilizers and labour, a reason for the palpable anger among farmers against the government.

Except in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, there is a direct fight between the BJP and the Congress in Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa, where the BJP is in power. In 2017 election, the Congress got more seats than the BJP in Manipur and Goa but was not able to form the government. In Uttar Pradesh, the fight is being considered bipolar this time between the ruling BJP and the Samajwadi Party with the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) being considered as fringe. In Punjab, the contest seems triangular as Congress faces stiff competition from the Aam Aadmi Party, the opposition party in Punjab assembly, and the Shiromani Akali Dal, which the Congress defeated with a huge margin in 2017.

In the multi-layered elections, where caste plays an important role, the poll results would broadly answer three vital questions. First, whether farmer protest resonated with people after the repeal; second, whether hate speeches against minorities led to polarization and third, whether high inflation and Covid management had any electoral impact.