Peoples Pulse survey carried out over three months in Telangana shows BRS is on top despite anti-incumbency.
Published Aug 03, 2023 | 4:26 PM ⚊ Updated Aug 04, 2023 | 8:03 AM
Telangana Legislative Assembly building. (Official Website)
The undeniable anti-incumbency against the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government may not be an impediment in K Chandrashekar Rao scoring an electoral hattrick in Telangana.
A mood survey carried out by Hyderabad-based Peoples Pulse shows that the Opposition parties — the Congress and the BJP — not being in a position to capitalise on the anti-incumbency against the ruling BRS may pave the way for Rao to return as the chief minister of Telangana.
Peoples Pulse carried out an extensive field study across the state in the last three months to assess mood at the ground level in poll-bound Telangana.
While anti-incumbency and discontent against the BRS government are high, it isn’t to the extent of pulling the government down from power and giving a chance to the Opposition parties.
Despite a majority of sitting BRS MLAs facing severe anti-incumbency, the mood survey showed that over 40 percent of respondents prefer Chandrashekhar Rao as the chief minister, again.
The Congress, which is seeing an upsurge in its camp after the results of Karnataka Assembly elections, is looking to wrest power from the BRS in the upcoming Telangana Assembly election — expected to be held in November-December — but the party’s lack of a strong or mass leadership is posing a challenge.
As per the assessment of Peoples Pulse mood report till July, the Congress is likely to win 30-35 seats in the upcoming Telangana Assembly polls. The state has 119 Assembly constituencies.
Ever since the Telangana statehood movement gained momentum in the erstwhile combined Andhra Pradesh, the Congress has never won majority seats in the region.
KCR speaking during Telangana foundation day celebration. (Supplied)
In the 2009 elections, when the movement had reached its peak, the Congress had won only 50 out of the 119 seats in the Telangana region.
En masse defections from the Congress in the past, its performance in by-polls, and its alliances in previous elections are the factors working against the party, the survey suggests.
The BRS’ appeal, cutting across community and caste lines, comes as a boost to KCR’s party.
Going by the field-level study conducted by Peoples Pulse, the difference in vote share between the BRS and the Congress could be around 9-10 percent, which would help the BRS return to power comfortably.
The BJP might get a 13-14 percent vote share and end up as a distant third, vote share-wise.
Despite the top leadership of the party, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah working out strategies for the last two years to conquer Telangana, the BJP remains a distant fourth party in Telangana with even lesser seats than AIMIM.
The BJP had won just two seats in the Telangana region during the election in the combined Andhra Pradesh state in 2009, of whom one MLA — Yendala Laxminarayana — lost his seat in the 2014 elections.
The BJP could win only five out of 45 seats it had contested in alliance with the TDP in 2014 in the newly-formed state.
But the strength slipped to just one seat in December 2018 elections and, except for Goshamahal MLA Raja Singh, the remaining four MLAs lost their seats. The BJP had lost its deposits in 105 seats, which clearly showed the lack of organisational strength of the party.
However, the BJP won four Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 parliamentary elections in the Telangana region. They account for 28 MLA seats.
The party, however, doesn’t even have eight strong candidates in these four LS constituencies, who can win the Assembly seats.
Though the BJP could win the by-elections to two Assembly seats — in Dubbaka and Huzurabad — it was purely because of the individual popularity of the candidates and not because of the party’s strength.
According to the study conducted by Peoples Pulse, the BJP doesn’t have strong candidates in at least 90 Assembly constituencies.
Even the four sitting MPs do not have the capability to ensure the victory of at least four MLAs each in their respective domains. The BJP’s tally in the Telangana Assembly elections 2023 is likely to remain in the single digits, the mood survey suggests.
The AIMIM on the other hand currently has seven seats in Telangana and is looking to expand its seat share to 10.
Economic class wise voting preference.
The mood survey shows that the popular perception that the Reddy community consolidated in favour of the Congress in Telangana is far from ground reality.
“In the 2014 Assembly elections, only seven percent of Reddys voted for the Congress and 52 percent for the BRS. In the 2018 elections, too, it was more or less repeated,” the survey report noted.
Backward Classes (BCs), too, preferred the BRS to the Congress, as per the survey.
In the 2018 elections, more than 50 percent of BCs voted for the BRS and only 29 percent preferred the Congress, and nine percent the BJP. Among the Scheduled Castes (SCs), 53 percent voted for the BRS, 30 percent for the Congress, and six percent for the BJP.
Among the OCs, nearly 47 percent voted for the BRS, 25 percent for the Congress, and 13 percent for the BJP. Excluding the AIMIM, over 80 percent of the remaining Muslims supported the BRS in 2018.
The Communist parties — CPI and CPI (M) — seemed to be fighting for their existence in Telangana. The two parties, which had a nominal presence in the Assembly in 2009 and 2014, only because of their alliance with the other major parties, have lost their vote bank considerably.
The BSP is expected to cause some damage to the Congress party vote bank by splitting the Dalit votes. State BSP Chief Praveen Kumar, if he chooses the right constituency, might win his seat because of his clout among the community, the mood survey suggests.
While the mood survey concludes that the BRS could comfortably return to power in Telangana due to a weak Opposition, victory of the BRS would depend on two factors — how many sitting MLAs would KCR drop and how he would erase the growing impression among the people that the BRS is the “B” team of the BJP.
