Episode 135: Indian State Elections - Uttar Pradesh

On 10 March 2022, the results of the elections held across five Indian states were announced. Much of the attention was focused on Uttar Pradesh (UP), the largest and most populous state in the country, where the Bharatiya Janata Party made a resounding victory. In the first episode of the two-part series on the Indian elections, Dr Ronojoy Sen, Senior Research Fellow and Research Lead (Politics, Society and Governance), ISAS, discussed the UP assembly election results with Dr Neelanjan Sircar, Senior Visiting Fellow, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi and Non-Resident Fellow, Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania. They covered themes including electoral behaviour, the question of caste politics, religious polarisation, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the implications of the results for the upcoming general elections in 2024.