Revisiting the politics of social justice in Uttar Pradesh

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The astonishing rise of Hindutva politics, especially in the Hindi belt, has almost relegated the politics of social justice to the back burner. Till recently, it was the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) that emphatically raised the agenda of social justice and also mobilised the lower castes as influential participants in the electoral democracy of Uttar Pradesh. However, in the last Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, it must be noted that the BSP has witnessed a considerable drop in its vote percentage (from 30.43% in 2007 to 22.24% in 2017). And instead, it has been the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that has emerged as a new ‘inclusive’ party, with a whopping 39% of the vote share. In the current phase of politics and elections, it is the BSP that appears to be inactive and irrelevant.

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