How KCR Managed a Landslide Victory in Telangana

Video Editor: Abhishek Sharma

In a battle between arithmetic and chemistry, the charisma of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, popularly known as KCR, brought him victory. As a clear picture of the battle for power in Telangana emerges, KCR’s Telangana Rashtra Samithi, the TRS, is heading towards a two-thirds majority.

The Mahakootami, an alliance between the Congress, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Communist Party of India (CPI) and Telangana Jana Samiti (TJS) had posed the only threat to the TRS, as their combined vote share in 2014 was much more than that of TRS.

While pinning their hopes on numbers, the Mahakootami underestimated the aspirations of the people. The overriding sentiment in what is the youngest state in India, was to allow KCR to build Telangana, thus, ensuring votes favoured the TRS.

So how did KCR cruise towards an absolute majority against an opposition that appeared so strong on paper? Here is a breakdown of some of the key reasons.

A Wave Election For KCR

In the absence of the anti-incumbency, the Mahakootami alliance was pinning its hopes on the vote share. In the 2014 assembly elections, the vote share of the alliance partners was 40.1%, while the TRS recorded only 34%.

But the alliance failed to recognise that electoral arithmetic wouldn’t matter when their opponent was riding a popularity wave. As the results show, not only was the TRS unaffected by the combined might of the alliance, but it also managed to eat into the alliance’s vote share.

The alliance was counting on the transfer of votes between them to ensure a victory, but with KCR charging through the alliance’s lines, they couldn’t even retain their traditional vote banks.

KCR’s Perception War

The Mahakootami – the Opposition alliance – was led by the Congress party. Even in terms of seat sharing, the Congress contested from 90 seats, while the TDP fielded candidates in only 13 seats.

However, during his campaigning, KCR projected the TDP as the principal opponent, rather than the Congress. Side-lining the Congress during his elections campaign, he made the election out to be between him and Chandrababu Naidu.

The Congress’ inability to project a charismatic Chief Ministerial candidate ensured that over a period of time Chandrababu Naidu became the face of the Mahakootami alliance. In short, the alliance walked into KCR’s trap.

The TDP and Chandrababu Naidu are seen as those who opposed the creation of Telangana. By projecting Chandrababu Naidu as the leader of the alliance, KCR was able to use the anti-Andhra sentiments in Telangana against the alliance.

Congress’ Cardinal Mistakes

In 2014, the credit for creating a new Telangana state was shared between the TRS and the Congress - the TRS was the party that fought for the state and the Congress was the one that granted it. This is one of the reasons why even at the peak of the euphoria about a new state, TRS was only able to win 63 seats.

But by 2018, TRS had emerged as the champions of Telangana. The Congress party clearly failed to capitalise on the goodwill they had in 2014. The partnership with the TDP not only meant that they did not capitalise on the goodwill, but that they went on to become the ally of the enemy.

Dalit, OBC Vote Banks

Vote shares from the 2004 and 2009 elections reveal that the TRS only had 14 to 15 percent vote share in the Telangana region. This essentially meant that the Congress was the dominant party here.

But, in 2014 the TRS rode a wave election on the backdrop of agitations for the creation of Telangana, and their vote share went up to 34.5 percent. This huge jump in vote share for the TRS was attributed to a major shift of SC/ST and backward caste votes from the Congress to the TRS. In effect, the Congress vote share dropped from approximately 36 percent in 2009 to 25 percent in 2014.

The ability of the TRS to move from the simple to absolute majority in 2018 shows that they have managed to eat further into larges vote banks in the state - the Dalits and OBCs.

One of the reasons for this increase of support from the OBCs is the party’s welfare schemes. With popular schemes like 24-hour electricity, Raithu Bandhu – a farmer support programme – and others, the TRS has been able to garner support from various communities.

Even though TRS is euphoric of their victory and KCR is making his plans to enter Delhi’s politics, the deletion of 22 lakh voters in Telangana, which is 8% of the total electorate, will pose some comfortable questions to KCR in the coming days.