New Delhi: Within the grand battle of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) attempts to consolidate Hindus versus the Samajwadi Party’s strategy to mobilise marginalised Hindu castes and Muslims, lie several smaller contests that are shaping the political mood in Uttar Pradesh, ahead of the by-elections on nine assembly seats.

Since the results on the nine seats have no bearing on the popularity of the government in the 403-member House, the bypolls have become more about the larger political messaging by both sides than the actual outcome on these particular seats.

At present, the BJP and its allies hold five out of the nine seats. The remaining four are with the SP. Even if either side is able to cause upsets on a couple of seats, it is unlikely to have any ramifications on the overall picture. The 2027 Assembly elections are still more than two years away.

The Dalit factor

Of the nine assembly seats that are due for the bypolls, Ghaziabad is perhaps the safest constituency for the ruling BJP. The party has won it six times since 1991 while the Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party have won it only once each.

The only time the SP – today the main Opposition in the state – secured the seat was in a bypoll two decades ago. In the last two elections, in 2017 and 2022, the BJP’s Atul Garg, who was elected as MP this summer, won the Ghaziabad Assembly seat by margins of more than 70,000 and 1 lakh, respectively. Even by UP standards, these are big margins and unassailable, at least on paper.

The urban seat, close to Delhi, has been dominated by candidates from the so-called “upper castes.” It is in this background that SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s experiment of fielding a Dalit candidate from Ghaziabad, an unreserved seat, has offered a new challenge to the BJP.

It is unusual for parties to field Dalits on general seats. In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, Yadav fielded Dalit candidates on two highly-prized seats, Meerut and Faizabad (which houses the Ram Mandir), losing the former by a........

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