Is the BJP in UP really more representative of society than other parties? Not really

Gilles Verniers shows in his PhD thesis. The presence of Muslims among the SP’s MLAs was proportionate to their demographic weight (at 19 per cent); the percentage of OBCs among the SP’s MLAs (27 per cent) was not as large as the percentage of OBCs in society, but it was larger than the share of upper caste MLAs (26 per cent) – and Yadavs represented a little bit more than half of them, with Kurmis, Kushwahas, Nishads, Jaiswals, Shakyas, Chaurasias, Gadaryas and Mallahs also represented. Certainly, the percentage of upper castes in Akhilesh’s council of ministers (33 per cent) remained higher than that of OBCs (31 per cent), but it was closer to the share of upper castes in society as in today’s cabinet: 45 per cent.