At stake in UP

What is certain is that the centrality of UP to India's political story has been confirmed

Voting has begun for what may be the most consequential round of Assembly elections of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second term. The five states going to the polls — Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand, and Manipur — are all clearly contested. Opinion polling prior to the elections has been poor and scattered, and state-level polls in India are in any case of relatively poor quality. But judging by what is known in the public domain, it appears that most political observers are of the opinion that in the states of Punjab, Goa, and Uttarakhand the Congress party is more likely