Uttar Pradesh goes to the polls early next year. Sreenivasan Jain travels through Mohanlalganj, Sultanpur and Ayodhya in the state’s central Awadh region. The region has long been a BJP bastion, but in 2024 it became a fiercely contested battleground, where the party suffered its greatest setbacks. Jain’s focus is not the core supporters of any party but the voters in the middle: the non-Yadav OBCs and non-Jatav Dalits, who are crucial in deciding the electoral contest. 

In a village in Mohanlalganj, Savitri Devi of the Badhai caste, traditionally artisans, will vote for the BJP. Asked about unemployment, she says: “Listen, start a business. Modi ji is giving ration, so work hard and earn.” Gyanmati, also a Badhai, says her sons do daily-wage labour because there is no other work. “We did get a latrine, and we got 5 kilos of ration, but there is no employment”. 

In a village in Sultanpur, Kusma of the Dhobi caste says her two sons have gone to Bombay to iron clothes. Of the free ration, she asks: “Can you get by on five kilos?” She used to vote for the BSP. Now, she says, “Someone else should come.” Gunja Devi, of the same village, once voted for Modi. She too wants a change. “Nothing gets done anywhere without a bribe.” Her father, Brahmadeen, is cynical about the alternatives. “They’re all pocket-fillers, every one of them.”

Ayodhya is where the BJP suffered one of its biggest symbolic setbacks in 2024, despite the Ram temple. Rescue diver Bhagwan Deen Nishad says the boatmen community’s livelihoods were shut down after a Gujarati company got a contract, and were restored only after a month-long sit-in. The Nishads voted for the BJP in 2022, he says, but not in 2024. “I think the BJP will lose here in ‘27 too.”

At Ayodhya’s bus stand, state roadways staff, most of them upper caste and part of the BJP’s core base, remain largely loyal. “Ours is a Hindutva government,” says conductor Arvind Jaiswal. But some are angry about the SC/ST Act and new UGC rules on caste-based discrimination in universities. “We are all angry”, claims Ravindra Singh. He says he will still back Yogi Adityanath in the state elections, but that “Modi is in trouble”. Harish Singh, a driver and former BJP Yuva Morcha office-bearer, goes a step further: “No follower of Sanatan Dharma will vote for Modi.”

Watch Sreenivasan Jain’s ground report from Uttar Pradesh. 

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