— ✍️ Dr. Pankaj Tambe

Can Chandrashekhar Azad emerge as a kingmaker in the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election? The answer depends less on how many seats his party contests than on whether he can shape the agenda on which the election is fought.

Azad’s victory from Nagina in the 2024 Lok Sabha election established him as an independent political force. But one parliamentary victory does not automatically create a statewide organisation. Uttar Pradesh has 403 Assembly constituencies, sharply different regional realities and deeply entrenched party structures. To move from symbolic presence to decisive influence, Azad must convert personal popularity into organisation, policy and negotiation power.

His strongest opportunity lies in building a political partnership between Uttar Pradesh’s youth and the Educated Ambedkarite Middle Class.

This middle class is not defined merely by degrees, government jobs or professional success. It includes teachers, lawyers, doctors, engineers, civil servants, researchers, journalists, entrepreneurs and first-generation graduates whose advancement has been made possible by public education, reservation, constitutional rights and earlier social struggles. Its Ambedkarite character begins when individual mobility is converted into collective responsibility.

That responsibility is urgent. Young people in Uttar Pradesh face recruitment delays, examination irregularities, insecure employment, rising educational costs and shrinking confidence in public institutions. They possess the lived experience of administrative failure. The Educated Ambedkarite Middle Class possesses legal knowledge, research skills, professional networks and familiarity with government systems. One brings urgency and social energy; the other brings institutional knowledge. Their collaboration can transform grievance into policy.

This is why the party manifesto must become the central instrument of the Ambedkarite movement.

Most political parties treat manifestos as ceremonial documents released shortly before voting and forgotten soon afterward. An Ambedkarite party cannot afford this habit. Its manifesto must be a document of public reasoning, democratic education and measurable accountability. Ambedkarite political writing demands clarity, evidence, structure and moral purpose; it cannot be reduced to emotional slogans or vague promises.

Every major promise should answer five questions: What is the problem? Who is affected? Which institution is responsible? What policy change is proposed? How will implementation be measured?

A promise of employment, for example, should include a time-bound recruitment calendar, safeguards against paper leaks, transparent vacancy data, apprenticeships and support for local enterprise. Educational justice should mean timely scholarships, affordable higher education, adequate hostels, teacher recruitment, digital access and anti-discrimination mechanisms. Social justice should include legal aid, police accountability, protection from caste violence and public monitoring of complaints.

The manifesto should also connect representation with economic democracy. Dignity cannot survive without access to land, credit, housing, markets, public procurement and secure work. Ambedkarite politics must therefore move beyond symbolic recognition and address the material institutions that reproduce inequality.

Azad’s party should prepare a people’s manifesto through district-level consultations involving students, unemployed youth, workers, farmers, women, teachers, lawyers, health professionals, small entrepreneurs and marginalised communities. The Educated Ambedkarite Middle Class should help document testimony, analyse data and translate demands into legally and financially credible proposals. A preliminary draft should be released for public criticism before the final manifesto is adopted.

Such a process would do more than produce a better document. It would train party workers, create policy leadership and reduce dependence on one charismatic figure. It would also demonstrate that Ambedkarite politics is capable not only of resisting injustice, but of designing government. Nagina produced a leader; a participatory manifesto could help produce a party.

Alliance politics will also test Azad. Larger parties may seek his support to consolidate Dalit and youth votes. But an alliance based only on seat-sharing could reduce his movement to an electoral appendage. He should negotiate through a written common programme on employment, education, reservation, public health, social security and institutional accountability. That would give marginalised voters leverage before polling day and a standard for accountability afterwards.

This would redefine the meaning of kingmaker. Azad’s influence should not be measured only by whether he helps one established party defeat another. It should be measured by whether he forces the next government to accept policies it might otherwise ignore.

The real question for 2027 is therefore not whether Chandrashekhar Azad can decide who becomes chief minister. It is whether he can build a coalition capable of deciding what the next chief minister must do.

If youth supply the energy, the Educated Ambedkarite Middle Class supplies organised knowledge, and the manifesto binds both to a policy agenda, Azad can become more than a kingmaker. He can become an agenda-maker in Uttar Pradesh politics.

- Dr. Pankaj Tambe is an Ambedkarite thinker, writer, and researcher based in Nagpur, Maharashtra. His work focuses on the thought of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, social justice, equality, democracy, constitutional values, and the struggle against caste discrimination. Through his writings, he promotes Ambedkarite philosophy and encourages critical thinking, education, and social transformation.