How BJP is building its UP pitch well before 2027 election battle

As the country’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh — with 80 Lok Sabha seats and 403 assembly constituencies — is widely seen as the “gateway to Delhi.”Riding high on its sweeping victory in the recently concluded West Bengal assembly elections, which brought the party to power in the state for the first time, the BJP has now shifted its focus to UP.When Uttar Pradesh goes to the polls early next year, the saffron party will have completed nearly a decade in power in the state.A victory here would carry far-reaching political implications, especially with the next Lok Sabha elections due in 2029.With caste dynamics expected to play a key role, the BJP government in the state expanded its cabinet earlier this month, less than a year ahead of the crucial polls.Chief minister Yogi Adityanath, set to seek an unprecedented third consecutive term, inducted former state BJP chief Bhupendra Chaudhary and Samajwadi Party (SP) rebel Manoj Pandey as cabinet ministers. Kailash Rajput, Hansraj Vishwakarma, Krishna Paswan and Surendra Diler were inducted as ministers of state.In addition, ministers of state Ajit Singh Pal and Somendra Tomar were elevated to ministers of state with independent charge.Among the new entrants, Chaudhary, Vishwakarma, and Rajput belong to the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category, while Tomar belongs to the influential Gujjar community, which holds sway in parts of western UP. Pal represents the Pal community, which has a significant presence in the Kanpur-Agra belt.Pandey, the SP rebel, is from the Brahmin community.The cabinet reshuffle was widely seen as an attempt by the BJP to counter its principal challenger SP’s “Pichda, Dalit, Alpasankhyak” (PDA) narrative — referring to backwards, Dalits and minorities — which has emerged as a central plank of former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav’s political strategy in the state.According to political observers, the SP’s PDA pitch, along with a range of other factors, played a key role in its winning 37 of the state’s 80 Lok Sabha constituencies, while the BJP’s tally fell to just 33, down from 62 in 2019 and 71 in 2014.Earlier, in December 2025, the BJP appointed Union minister and Lok Sabha MP Pankaj Chaudhary as the president of its Uttar Pradesh unit.Chaudhary, like his predecessor Bhupendra Chaudhary, belongs to the Other Backward Classes (OBC) and is from the Kurmi community.Within the OBCs, the Kurmis are the second-largest community in Uttar Pradesh after the Yadavs.In the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, the highest number of Kurmi candidates to win were on BJP tickets, with 27 victories. The SP-led alliance also had a notable presence within the community, with 13 Kurmi candidates among its 125 victorious nominees.Among the opposition’s prominent Kurmi candidates was Pallavi Patel of the Apna Dal (Kamerawadi). Patel defeated deputy chief minister and former state BJP chief Keshav Prasad Maurya from the Sirathu assembly constituency by over 7,300 votes.Recently, BJP national president Nitin Nabin declared that the 2027 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections would be fought under the leadership of Adityanath.The endorsement by the party chief not only came as a shot in the arm for the chief minister, but also effectively put to rest speculation over who would lead the campaign.The announcement was important as every now and then, speculation resurfaces over "differences" between Adityanath and the BJP’s top leadership, along with rumours that he could be replaced as chief minister.Political analysts say that the statement reaffirms Yogi's status of being the party's central figure in UP and turns the forthcoming poll battle into a direct referendum on his governance.Adityanath was serving his fifth consecutive term in the Lok Sabha as MP from Gorakhpur when he was picked to lead Uttar Pradesh in 2017 following the BJP’s landslide victory, which brought the party back to power in the state after 15 years.That success was widely credited to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity. However, Adityanath has since gone on to become the BJP’s most prominent Hindutva face, earning the moniker of “Bulldozer Baba” for his controversial yet popular policy of using bulldozers to demolish properties linked to alleged criminals. He is also among the party’s most sought-after campaigners.The BJP is also working to counter the opposition’s “Constitution is in danger” narrative at the grassroots level. Experts agree that the campaign played a significant role in the party’s setbacks in several states, including UP, leading to the Narendra Modi government losing its parliamentary majority for the first time since it came to power at the Centre in 2014.The narrative stemmed from repeated remarks by BJP leaders about “changing the Constitution” and was further amplified by PM Modi’s “400 paar” call. The opposition’s campaign resonated with a large section of voters, particularly among the Scheduled Caste (SC) community, as Dr BR Ambedkar — widely regarded as the “Father of the Constitution” — belonged to the Dalit community. In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP won only 8 of the 17 SC-reserved constituencies in 2024, down from all 17 in 2014 and 14 in 2019.While acknowledging that the “Constitution” narrative hurt the party, a UP BJP functionary told The Times of India that the opposition would not be allowed to “mislead” voters this time.“The opposition appears to be revisiting the same strategy, but we will not allow it to sway the electorate this time,” he said.According to the 2011 Census, the last such exercise before the current one began in April, India’s Scheduled Caste (SC) population stood at 20.14 crore.Data released by the Union census directorate in 2013 showed that at 20.5%, Uttar Pradesh had the highest Scheduled Caste population in the country, followed by West Bengal (10.7%).In Uttar Pradesh, Dalits constitute around 21% of the state’s estimated 241 million population, the second-highest share after the OBCs (40-50%).Notwithstanding the BJP’s comeback following a setback in the general elections—it now governs 21 of the 28 states and Union territories, either on its own or with allies—the SP is set to double down on its PDA narrative.The recent release of a booklet, title "PDA Audit Part-1," is a step in that direction.SP supremo Akhilesh Yadav, who served as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh from 2012 to 2017 in his first and only term so far, cited from the booklet to accuse the BJP of discirmination against the PDA bloc. He alleged that under the Yogi government, more than 11,500 posts reserved for candidates from the “PDA categories” were affected across 22 recruitment examinations in the state.According to the socialist party, the “audit” is intended to draw attention to what it describes as “discrimination” against these social groups in the selection and representation of key government positions, including posts such as District Magistrates and Superintendents of Police, where it alleges they remain underrepresented despite reservation provisions.Yadav coined the term “PDA” in 2023. Together, these three groups account for around 70–75% of the state’s electorate, making them a decisive voting bloc.The election may still be nearly a year away, but political analysts have already begun sketching a picture of where things stand — albeit only for now.Pradeep Gupta of Axis My India, one of the more reliable pollsters, said the BJP was comfortably ahead of the SP in Uttar Pradesh.“Looking at the overall feedback from Uttar Pradesh, the level of satisfaction appears to be strong,” Gupta told PTI.However, he cautioned that the situation could change “very quickly” as Uttar Pradesh is a “different kind of state.”Gupta also pointed to the likelihood of vote fragmentation due to the presence of four major players — the BJP, SP, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Congress.For the BJP, often described as a party that is always in “campaign mode”, the battle is already underway — with the party seeking to consolidate its social coalition, counter the SP’s PDA narrative, and script history by winning a third consecutive term in Uttar Pradesh.For the opposition, meanwhile, the challenge will be to regain the momentum it generated in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections but has since squandered, and convert it into a sustained electoral challenge against the BJP in the state.