Promises to carve out Harit Pradesh (western UP), Poorvanchal (eastern UP), Bundelkhand and Awadh have been pushed to the back burner with no party pushing for division of the state.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), headed by Mayawati, was once a strong supporter of the demand to corner ruling Samajwadi Party on development and law and order issues, maintaining that smaller states could be governed better.
Dalit icon BR Ambedkar, the architect of the Constitution, by whose name Mayawati swears, had recommended division of Uttar Pradesh in his book "Bhashayi Rajya".
Not only BSP has dropped the demand this time, even ruling Samajwadi Party is silent on the issue fearing that such a development might harm its electoral prospects while giving an edge to Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) headed by Ajit Singh, BJP and Congress.
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Even BJP, whose stakes are high in the UP polls, has
The BJP-led NDA had carved out Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh from UP, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh respectively, giving rise to speculation that it might favour further division of the largest state.
But, its 2017 UP poll manifesto is silent on the issue and speaks only about setting up Bundelkhand and Poorvanchal development boards if voted to power in UP.
All the more interesting is the fact that Ajit Singh's RLD, which used to sing the Harit Pradesh tune during every election, is silent on the issue which even five years ago was central to campaigning by almost all political parties barring SP.
While Mayawati's strength dropped to 80 seats from 206, RLD got nine - one less than the previous tally, and Peace Party could get only four.
On the other hand, Samajwadi Party, the only party to oppose the demand, stormed to power with a landslide victory, bagging 224 of the 403 Assembly seats.
Analysts said one reason could be the fact that people took pride in being residents of one of the country's biggest state and did not wish to give up that identity.