ExplainedElections
Who's who in the 2027 Uttar Pradesh contest
Yogi Adityanath seeks a third term, Akhilesh Yadav is betting on his PDA coalition and Mayawati is going it alone. The leaders, the small caste-based parties that tip close seats, and the newcomers who want a share.
The short answer
The 2027 election is shaping up as a contest between the BJP-led NDA under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, with Apna Dal (Soneylal), NISHAD, the SBSP and the RLD as allies, and the Samajwadi Party under Akhilesh Yadav, which is negotiating seats with the Congress. Mayawati's BSP will fight alone, and Chandrashekhar Azad's Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) is competing for the same Dalit vote.
Who leads the BJP’s campaign?
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who has run Uttar Pradesh since 2017, is the face of the party’s bid for a third straight term.
Adityanath led the BJP to a second majority in 2022, winning his own seat of Gorakhpur Urban. His government has two deputy chief ministers, Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak.
The party organisation is now headed by Pankaj Chaudhary, a seven-time Lok Sabha MP from Maharajganj and a prominent Kurmi leader from eastern Uttar Pradesh, who took over as state president in December 2025 from Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary, a Jat leader from the west. The choice of an OBC face from the east followed the party’s setback there in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, when the BJP’s tally in the state fell to 33 of 80 seats.
Who are the BJP’s allies?
Four smaller parties, each with a strong base in particular castes and regions.
Apna Dal (Soneylal), led by Anupriya Patel, won 12 seats in 2022, the most of any ally. The NISHAD Party, led by Sanjay Nishad, draws on the Nishads, one of the smaller backward-caste groups that carry weight in the east, and won six.
The other two fought the last Assembly election against the BJP. The Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) of Om Prakash Rajbhar, strong among Rajbhars in Purvanchal, won six seats with the SP and has since joined the NDA; Rajbhar is now Panchayati Raj minister. In September he revived talk of splitting the state, telling a rally in Deoria: “The state will be divided into four parts.” The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) of Jayant Chaudhary, whose base is in western Uttar Pradesh, won eight seats with the SP in 2022. Chaudhary is now a Union minister.
Who leads the main challenge?
Akhilesh Yadav, the Samajwadi Party’s national president and a former Chief Minister.
Yadav won Karhal by 67,504 votes in 2022 and then Kannauj in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, when the SP won 37 of the state’s 80 seats, its best showing in a national election. That result rested on what he calls PDA, short for pichhde, Dalit, alpsankhyak (backward castes, Dalits and minorities).
He launched the SP’s 2027 campaign at a rally in Dadri in March. “The PDA movement is not for one or two elections, but a long struggle against historical injustice,” he said. In September he took a PDA Rath Yatra out of Rae Bareli. The party’s state unit is led by Shyam Lal Pal.
Where does the Congress fit?
As the SP’s junior partner, though how junior is still being argued over.
The Congress won only two Assembly seats in 2022, but six Lok Sabha seats in 2024 fighting alongside the SP. Its state unit has been led since August 2023 by Ajay Rai, who contested against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi in 2024. Reports this week said the party leadership had replaced him with Aradhana Misra, daughter of senior leader Pramod Tiwari, to smooth talks with the SP.
Seat-sharing has not been settled. The Congress has been reported to want 150 seats or more, while SP sources have been reported to offer about 75 to 80. SP leaders have said talks should happen directly with Akhilesh Yadav rather than through the media.
What is Mayawati planning?
To fight alone and rebuild a party that won a single seat in 2022.
The BSP has governed Uttar Pradesh four times, and Mayawati says she wants a fifth term. “There should be no confusion about this,” she said in February. “The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) will contest the next Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh alone.”
Her nephew Akash Anand, the party’s national coordinator, has been given the job of mobilising cadres. Mayawati said in August that reports of him choosing candidates had “not even a shred of truth”, and that she was personally finalising the list after interviewing aspirants.
Who are the new players?
Chandrashekhar Azad’s Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) is the most significant.
Azad’s party polled just 0.13% in the 2022 Assembly election but won the Nagina Lok Sabha seat in 2024 with 51.19% of the vote. In July his party named in-charges for its first 45 Assembly seats; its state vice-president said 18 were from Scheduled Castes, 16 from OBCs, 10 Muslims and one Sikh. The party says its list represents the different sections of Bahujan society, the same voters the BSP calls its own. SP leaders were reported last year to be keeping the door open to an alliance with Azad.
Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM, which won no seats in 2022, has also stepped up its pitch to Muslim voters, telling them that voting for the SP had cost them.
What should voters watch for next?
Seat-sharing deals, defections and ticket lists.
The SP and the Congress still have to agree a formula, and the NDA has to share seats among five parties. The BSP and the Aazad Samaj Party have already begun naming candidates. The election is expected in February and March 2027, before the Assembly’s term ends on 22 May.
For every minister, seat and 2022 margin, see our Uttar Pradesh 2027 election guide.
The documents
- Party-wise result, Uttar Pradesh, General Election to Lok Sabha 2024Election Commission of India, 4 June 2024