Following the Rajya Sabha elections in October 2026, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath reiterated his contentious “80 vs 20” slogan, which carries two interpretations.
In the 2017 assembly polls, the NDA managed to secure less than one per cent support from Muslim women who appreciated the government’s move against Triple Talaq. It also fielded Sanjayan Tripathi from the Gorakhpur graduate constituency for the October 23 legislative council election, which is the CM’s stronghold. This leaves the SP also with 80% of the Dalit, Backward and Muslim voters as the remaining 20% comprises the Brahmin, Rajput and Vaishya voters. Ironically, it was Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) founder- president Kanshi Ram, who had first raised the slogan of “85% vs15%. He even formed a Bahujan Samaj alliance by entering into a pact with the SP in 1993 and declared Mulayam Singh Yadav, a member of the Bahujan Samaj, as the chief ministerial candidate. After 14 years of a coalition jinx, the BSP formed an independent government by polling 30.43% votes, winning 206 seats in the 2007 UP assembly polls. The SP, with 25.43% votes and 97 seats, remained the runner-up.
Interestingly, the BJP, which had initially tried to win over the Muslim community, has apparently given up hope of gaining their support in the forthcoming UP assembly elections. Despite the existence of the Muslim Morcha, whose national president Basit Ali hails from poll- bound UP, the BJP has no Muslim MLA, MP or minister in the state. The oft-repeated rationale is that the community must support the BJP to earn political representation. Paradoxically, the Samajwadi Party (SP), leading the opposition camp, is also navigating a similar strategy by relying heavily on its time-tested formula of PDA (Pichra, Dalit and Alpasankhyak). The party fielded Pawan Pandey from the Ayodhya Sadar assembly constituency, announcing his candidature early. Nonetheless, the party’s ally, the Congress, can become the second choice of the Brahmins in constituencies where they don’t vote for the BJP. However, his style of politics was vitriolic against the upper castes.
Thus, when Yogi raises the slogan “batoge toh katoge” (if you divide, you are ruined) it acquires a communal hue. Prime Minister Narendra Modi recast the phrase as “Saath rahoge, safe rahoge” (stay united, stay safe), emphasising the importance of Hindu unity under the Hindutva banner.
