For pundits as well as voters, no other Indian state occupies as much political mindscape as Uttar Pradesh does. The assembly election in UP is nothing short of a mid-term endorsement for the incumbent atop Raisina Hill. Coincidentally, the polls fall a little over two and a half years into the Narendra Modi government’s third term in February-March 2027. And ever since the NEET exam question paper leak was exposed by a whistleblower from Sikar in Rajasthan, the Central government has been battling allegations of lack of accountability leading to street protests.

Now, the results of the just concluded UP legislative council polls point to discontent among sections of the middle classes – the BJP’s core constituency. This follows the setback in the Bankipur by-poll in early August. Bankipur in Central Patna, the stronghold of the educated middle class and forward caste voters of Bihar, which has never elected any party other than the BJP since 1995, chose Jan Suraj Party’s Prashant Kishore. The BJP lost its national president Nitin Nabin’s pocketborough by 19,324 votes.

In the elections held for 11 seats in the 100-member UP Vidhan Parishad, the BJP won six and the Samajwadi Party five. These are not general elections, but those with a limited electoral college – in this case restricted to teachers and graduates. The constituents need to register separately, offering proof of being teachers or graduates. Of the registered 1.48 million voters, there are about 1.18 million graduates and 240,000 teachers, and the overall turnout was approximately 55%, which would add up to roughly 800,000 voters. This is a large sample size for any survey of the mood of voters, particularly those belonging to a specific class segment.

The bulk of graduates and teachers form the backbone of the BJP’s middle-class core constituency. Sure, the BJP has won six out of the 11 seats that went to polls, but the significant feature of the polls is the primary Opposition party’s performance. While the BJP won as many seats as it had grabbed in 2020, the Samajwadi Party has won five seats, up from three that it gained in the previous edition of these polls. For a middle-class and possibly a forward-caste electoral college to opt for SP and not independents to vent their ire against the chosen party in power is an indication of anti-incumbency shaping the acceptability of the Opposition party.

In the first-past-the-post system, it is often the anger against the incumbent that makes the Opposition more appealing. The recent assembly poll results from Tamil Nadu and Kerala prove this point.

A newbie with no organisational roots, ideological depth or electoral experience defeated a Dravidian giant in Tamil Nadu, and a badly bickering Opposition won a landslide in Kerala simply because the voters had had enough of the incumbent. When voter fatigue grows into apathy, any incumbent could get swallowed by an anti-incumbency wave.

The SP snapping at the heels of the BJP in a limited but significant electoral college shows signs of a political shift that can trigger an electoral tsunami.

The SP has been vigorously campaigning for the PDA alliance –Pichhada, Alpa Sankhyak and Dalit – which is a rainbow social coalition of backward castes, Muslims and scheduled castes. This campaign does not leave any space for the middle class, forward castes within the SP or the India Bloc umbrella, with even Congress leader Rahul Gandhi doubling down on SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s PDA mantra.

Yet, the graduates and teachers of UP are opting for the SP in a significant show of anger against their old favourites.

Despite winning only these many seats in the 2020 polls to the legislative council, the BJP had secured a clear majority of 255 seats in the 2022 assembly polls to the 403-seat house.

Going by that precedent, the BJP has nothing to worry about.

But that is not the electoral backdrop for the upcoming assembly polls in February-March 2027. The BJP had failed to win the majority of seats in the last general elections held in the state.

Of the 80 Lok Sabha seats, the BJP won just 33, whereas the SP could stamp its authority over 37 constituencies, while helping the Congress win six, taking the INDIA bloc’s total from the state to 43 (Chandra Shekhar Azad’s lone seat adding further strength to the Opposition benches). This was the highest Opposition tally from any state in the country in the 2024 Parliamentary polls.

That was not all. The 2024 polls showed Prime Minister Modi’s electoral image getting hurt, with his victory margin from Varanasi dipping to just 152,513 from 479,505 in 2019 and 371,784 in 2014.

The crucial aspect of the 2024 UP results was that Rahul Gandhi’s victory margin of 390,030 from Rae Bareli was much more than double that of the PM’s. The BJP, and the Sangh Parivar in particular, explained the party’s setback in UP as the result of the reaction of the RSS cadre against the then BJP president JP Nadda’s claim that the party does not need the RSS any longer to win elections. The BJP leaders acquiesced to the lessons the RSS taught them, promptly visiting the Nagpur headquarters.

The UP legislative council polls disprove this theory and underscore the point that elections are not won or lost by the cadre working or refusing to work. They are lost when voter apathy tips the balance. The only factor that the BJP has in its favour in UP right now is the track record of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

There are no personal allegations of corruption and nepotism or scandals of moral turpitude against Yogi. Can his clean image alone save the BJP from a repeat of the 2024 results? Unlikely.

From Patna to Lucknow to Varanasi, there is a political churning happening in the Hindi heartland, and the BJP does not seem to have addressed the underlying voter discontent.