Uttar Pradesh is the most populous state in India with a diverse population with different socio-economic backgrounds and regional identities. It has 403 Vidhan Sabha Assembly Constituencies and 80 Lok Sabha Constituencies, the largest in India, therefore, it has a significant political influence at the national level. Hence, the Vidhan Sabha Election results are often seen as a bellwether for the national political climate.
Also, the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha Election was crucial for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as it sought to retain power in the state. The BJP won a historic landslide victory in the 2017 elections, and political analysts and observers closely watched the party's performance in the 2022 elections.
In the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha Election, BJP came out as the single largest party followed by Samajwadi Party. However, it couldn’t increase its tally compared to the 2017 Vidhan Sabha Election (shown below), however, BJP was able to increase its vote share.
If election expenditures for 2022 Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha are observed, then it is clearly evident that BJP had the lion’s share in expenditure. It accounted for 52.7% of all the filed election expenditures in the 2022 UP Vidhan Sabha Election.
The election expenditure data has been obtained from the Election Commission of India (https://eci.gov.in/). Also, analysis of election expenditure is carried out for Recognised Political Parties (RPP) only which are either classified as National Party or as State Party by the Election Commission. Registered Unrecognised Political Parties (RUPP) election expenditures are not analysed here.
From the election expenditure table above, the following can be summarised:
1. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spent the most on the election campaign, which suggests that they were willing to invest heavily in their efforts to win the election.
2. The Indian National Congress (INC) was the second-highest spender, which indicates that they were also putting significant resources into the campaign. However, it is half the financial resources put in compared to BJP. Also, it spent significantly higher than the number of seats it won (analysis done below).
3. State parties generally spent much less on the election than national parties. However, Samajwadi Party (SP) was the highest-spending state party. As Uttar Pradesh is the only state with real significance for SP, it is not un-intuitive to be the largest spender as a state party.
4. Lastly, AIMIM, AAP, Shiv Sena, and the Left parties spend less than 1% of the total expenditure.
The above table shows that Samajwadi Party (SP) was the most efficient political party for deriving maximum value for its expenditure. It cost slightly over ₹19 Lakhs to win a seat. Samajwadi Party is followed by Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), it took slightly over ₹23 Lakhs to win a seat. For BJP the cost is significantly higher compared to SP and RLD at ₹86 Lakhs.
However, INC and BSP and the least efficient political parties and given the volume of their election expenditure. They were unable to secure enough victory in enough constituencies given the extent of their expenditure.
The above (Per Seat Won Expenditure) analysis should be taken with a pinch of salt because, besides monetary expenditure, there are numerous other factors that determine victory in an assembly constituency. For instance, the popularity of a leader, political party, the incumbent regime in the state; caste, religion, community-based candidate selection, and under-current for a particular party, among others. Also, more importantly, there are expenditures that are off the books which makes it impossible to make a significant comparison.
Therefore, in conclusion, it can be expressed that given the importance of Uttar Pradesh in India’s electoral politics, political parties, especially BJP and INC, will continue to expend substantial financial and other resources to retain/gain power. However, there should be some measures to limit the expenditure because it puts smaller parties and independent candidates at a significant disadvantage as they might not possess such financial resources.