Uttar Pradesh District Panchayat elections: Truth vs Hype

Barely two months ago, BJP had received a drubbing in the Gram Panchayat elections in Uttar Pradesh. But on Saturday, July 3, it went to town celebrating the party’s victory in 67 of the 75 districts in the District Panchayat election. It did look impressive on the surface. It was a great publicity coup and morale booster and created the impression that BJP has regained the confidence of the people.

Astute observers were quick to point out that the SP and BSP too had similarly swept the District Panchayat elections before losing the assembly elections.

But more importantly, out of the 3058 members in the District Panchayats, some districts having 50 members while smaller districts with 25 members or less, BJP had won fewer seats than Independents.

The Chairmen of District Panchayats or Zila Panchayat Adhyaksh (ZPA) are indirectly elected by members of the District Panchayats, who in turn are elected directly by the electorate. There are 3058 District Panchayat members in UP spread across the 75 districts of the state. The election for these seats was held in April and results were declared in May.

Independents won 1083 of the seats, followed by Samajwadi Party with 768, BJP 750, BSP 381 and Congress 76. The election of members was not held under party symbols, but political parties did field candidates and some even claimed Independents as their own candidates. The results indicated that BJP won just over 24 per cent of the seats in direct election but won 89 percent of the posts of Chairmen.

Rahul Verma, Fellow of Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi says that the results followed the usual pattern of local body elections in which the ruling party sweeps the district and Block Pramukh Presidents’ elections when official machinery is freely deployed and money power is used to induce voters.

In the last district Panchayat elections Samajwadi Party, when it was in power, had won 62 seats out of the 75 of which 36 were elected unopposed. Even BSP had swept the District Panchayat elections in 2011 when Mayawati was in power. And incidentally, both Akhilesh and Mayawati lost the assembly elections which were held a few months after the panchayat polls.

With the change of government in the state, more often than not, the Chairmen of the District Panchayat change too. A no-confidence motion is brought against the incumbent and members who had elected him when a different party was in power, elect another person closer to the new political dispensation. The role of money is not ruled out.

“It is a money bag election in which the ruling party gives all kinds of allurements to the members. The person who contests election for Chairman’s post also literally buys votes by paying hefty amounts to the members,” a Samajwadi Party lawmaker told this reporter.

He claimed that cross voting had happened in almost all the districts this time. In Azamgarh, the BJP supported candidate voted for SP while in Allahabad many Yadav members voted for BJP. “If BJP won in SP bastions like Kannauj, Budaun, Farrukhabad this shows that SP candidates voted for BJP for obvious reasons,” he said.

According to a rough estimate in a Chairman’s election the candidate spends anything between Rs 7- 10 crore while in Block Pramukh’s election the expenditure is something between Rs 3-5 crore. In practical terms, in the District Panchayat election a candidate spends more than Lok Sabha election candidate while the Block Pramukh spends more than legislative assembly candidate.

The District Panchayat chairmen become strong contenders for Lok Sabha seats while Block Pramukhs lay a stronger pitch for nomination as candidates in the assembly elections. Not surprisingly, in a majority of the cases family members of politicians contest for these posts.

The BJP this year had announced that it would not give ticket to family members of the party’s office-bearers, lawmakers or ministers so that new leadership could emerge. But in fact, in at least a dozen cases, relatives of BJP ministers or former lawmakers have been elected as Chairmen of District Panchayats.

In Gorakhpur, minister Fateh Bahadur Singh’s wife has been elected as Chairman. BJP MP Devendra Bhole’s brother has been elected Chairman in Kanpur, former minister Kamla Rani’s daughter has been elected chairman in Kanpur Dehat, relative of BJP MP from Jalauan Anurag and former MP Dddan Singh have been elected as Chairmen.

BJP spokesman Sanjay Chaudhry claims that the party has tried to avoid giving ticket to the relatives of BJP leaders but there could be some exceptions. He however called this victory as historic because he claimed that for the first time the BJP had contested elections in villages by fielding its candidates. “This shows our reach,” he said.

The Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav has asked district presidents to submit reports explaining why the party lost elections of the Chairmen of District Panchayats in all but five districts.