Missing in action: How two key parties in India’s largest state collapsed

The near-absence of election campaign by the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, which once ruled Uttar Pradesh, reflects larger challenges.

Lucknow, India – Ensconced in a bustling part of northern India’s sprawling Lucknow city is Lal Kuan, a predominantly Dalit neighbourhood.

The Dalits – who fall at the bottom of India’s complex caste hierarchy – are believed to be a loyal vote bank of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), currently led by Mayawati, the 68-year-old former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state, whose capital is Lucknow.

And yet, in the narrow, winding bylanes of Lal Kuan, BSP symbols are missing, with the saffron flag of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) near ubiquitous in the area.

It is not much different nearly 230km (143 miles) away in Etawah, a small town in western Uttar Pradesh and a bastion of the Samajwadi Party (SP) of Akhilesh Yadav, another former state chief minister, who was in power from 2012 to 2017. There is little to be seen of the SP in terms of campaign props, and once again, saffron flags sit atop houses, commercial buildings and other establishments.

Uttar Pradesh is India’s most populous and electorally crucial state. In area, it is nearly as big as the United Kingdom and its 241 million residents are more than the total population of neighbouring Pakistan or Brazil.

With 80 of 543 seats in the Lok Sabha – as the lower house of India’s parliament is called – winning Uttar Pradesh is a key determinant of who rules nationally in New Delhi. Maharashtra, with the second-most number of constituencies at 48, comes a distant second.

As India votes in crucial national elections, the battle to win Uttar Pradesh is on once again. In