Five years ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party won big in India’s most-populous state thanks in part to low-status voters who endorsed his economic vision. Now they’re showing signs of looking elsewhere.
Soaring prices, joblessness and health complications from a vicious wave of delta-fueled COVID-19 infections last summer are high on the minds of voters in Uttar Pradesh, the most crucial of five states that will reveal election results this week. Moreover, Modi’s Hindu-dominant Bharatiya Janata Party is pushing away some Muslims and voters from disadvantaged castes who once embraced him.
"Wages are coming down while inflation is rising — it’s becoming difficult to run the family and pay school fees,” Imtiyaz Ahmad, a 42-year-old Muslim who previously voted for Modi’s BJP, said in the swing district of Tanda while working long hours in the city’s textile factories to make extra cash. "We will vote for a change.”