The math game and coalitions: Decoding the campaigns and politics of UP Elections 2017

Most political analysts say that caste arithmetic plays the most important role in UP politics

After more than one and half months of high-pitched campaigning by all parties, the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls finally came to a close on Wednesday. After seven gruelling phases, journalists, analysts and politicians alike are continuously shifting their positions, as fortunes of different parties were perceived to be swinging.

The electoral ground in the largest state of India (in terms of population) is undoubtedly complex. Whether the historically-significant caste dynamics would tide over the so-called development claims by all parties in the fray or vice versa is a question which not many will be able to answer until the ballots