Rahul Gandhi kept claiming during his campaign trail that the NDA was seeking 400 seats because Narendra Modi's secret plan was to amend the Constitution and end the reservation system. The BJP took this campaign point lightly, only to pay a heavy price.
With the BJP's tally coming down to shockingly low levels in UP, it seems the propaganda has worked brilliantly in favour of the INDI Alliance.
Appearing on India Today, pollster Pradeep Gupta of Axis My India today said that SCs and STs are extremely sensitive to any talk that suggests that reservations will be taken away from them. In 2015, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said that the quota system needs a social review. Result? The BJP lost heavily in the ensuing Bihar Assembly elections.
Reservation is an extremely sensitive topic in our society. The BJP knows it very well. However, since Forward Castes vote heavily in its favour, the saffron party always runs the risk of being seen as an anti-reservation party. That's why the Modi government kept encouraging quotas in the medical education field, for example.
The Andhra Pradesh angle:
Curiously, the propaganda didn't work in Andhra Pradesh although an active campaign was run at the ground level among SCs and STs. Wonder if it's because the voters were not voting for the BJP directly in most of the seats and didn't perceive a major threat on a psychological level from the TDP.
