NEW DELHI: Voting behavior of the Muslims or scheduled castes and tribes in Uttar Pradesh has shown that they do not strictly form a bank for any party says a poll analyst.

The preference of the Indian voter is governed often by a whole set of complex reasons and is not one of primary party loyalty G Balachandran said.

However the voting pattern of the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in Uttar Pradesh has shown that the Congress may have an advantage of five percent votes more in the areas a where they concentrate says Balachandran.

It so happens that the areas where their concentration is higher are also areas which have traditionally been Congress strongholds he adds.

The Muslims do not vote substantially differently from non-Muslims and the common perception that Muslim votes can be treated as a homogenous group and depended upon to be a “vote bank” by any party is not correct Balachandran said.

Another common belief that Muslim votes fluctuate violently is also wrong and comments or analysis on this issue are of an anecdotal nature with very little data analysis he says.

This is mainly because of the problems in separating Muslim from non-Muslim votes in an election. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) which says it represents the Harijans and backward castes of the community did only marginally better in places of scheduled caste concentration a comparison of the last Lok Sabha elections in the non-reserved parliamentary constituency’s shows.

The BSP did better in the seats it contested in caster Uttar Pradesh than it did in central U P even though there is a greater concentration of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in central Uttar Pradesh says Balachandran.

While the total scheduled caste population in Uttar Pradesh as per the 1971 census averages at 21% their concentration is higher in central U P.

But their greater number does not mean that the Congress votes in these areas shoot up dramatically.

For example in the 1989 lok Sabha elections in the northern portion of central U P where the scheduled caste population is as high as 25.3% the Congress votes polled was 38% in the eastern portion of the plains of east U P where the scheduled caste concentration is of about 20.6% the votes polled by the Congress was 27.1%.

Likewise in the southern part of central U P which has 23.7% SC population.

Article extracted from this publication >> May 17, 1991