International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research

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Reconfiguration of Identity Politics in Uttar Pradesh: An Electoral Analysis of Caste Dynamics in 2012, 2017 and 2022 Assembly Elections

Author(s) Dr. Ujjwal Katiyar, Mr. Adarsh Singh
Country India
Abstract Identity politics, centered on caste-based mobilization and representation, has dominated Uttar Pradesh's electoral landscape since the 1990s, with parties like Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party building their success on explicit caste alignments. However, conventional wisdom suggests that the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) sweeping victories in Uttar Pradesh's 2017 and 2022 assembly elections marked the decline of such identity politics and the rise of issue-based voting. This paper challenges this narrative by analyzing caste-based ticket distribution patterns across three assembly elections (2012, 2017, and 2022) for the BJP, Samajwadi Party (SP), and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Using secondary data from Lokniti and the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, we demonstrate that the BJP has not weakened identity politics but strategically reconfigured it. Our analysis reveals that the BJP maintains upper-caste dominance (43-48% ticket allocation despite 20% population share) while systematically targeting non-Yadav OBCs and non-Jatav Scheduled Castes, deliberately avoiding direct competition with SP and BSP for their core vote banks. This strategic caste diversification, combined with broader Hindutva mobilization, has enabled BJP to build a new social coalition without abandoning identity politics. The findings suggest that caste remains central to electoral strategy in Uttar Pradesh, albeit in reconfigured forms that challenge traditional party-caste alignments.
Keywords Electoral Geography, Identity Politics, Caste, Political Geography, Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections
Field Sociology > Politics
Published In Volume 7, Issue 6, November-December 2025
Published On 2025-12-31
DOI https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2025.v07i06.65486
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