Despite the lack of unanimity, exit polls conducted by several agencies clearly tell the Telangana story. The story comprises three parts.
The Congress is clearly gaining. Notwithstanding the variation in the exit polls put out by a plethora of agencies, the Congress is the cynosure of the poll battle.
Almost all agencies predict that the Congress is either winning with a clear mandate or emerging as the single largest party in case of a hung verdict. Secondly, the ruling BRS (Bharat Rashtra Samithi) is all set to witness a substantial erosion. The pink party led by KCR (K Chandrasekhar Rao) won 88 seats with a massive vote share of nearly 47 percent in 2018.
By engineering defections from the Opposition, especially the Congress, the BRS, earlier the TRS (Telangana Rashtra Samithi), increased its tally to over 100 seats in the outgoing Assembly. Despite its lofty ambitions to go national, the party will suffer a huge erosion.
Third, the BJP will increase its share of votes and seats compared to 2018. But it will still fall short of the 2019 Lok Sabha election performance and suffer a reversal of fortunes which it got in the series of by-elections and Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections.
However, what makes all these exit polls throw up such divergent numbers?
Why There Is Disbelief About the Congress' Rise
The Congress rise is being seen with a sense of disbelief primarily due to two reasons.
Firstly, it was nowhere till very recently. The party suffered a humiliating defeat in a series of by-elections while the saffron party was registering spectacular wins, even wresting sitting seats from the BRS. The Congress not only lost its sitting seat to the BRS, but also its war veteran Jana Reddy lost to the not-so-popular BRS nominee in the Nagarjunasagar by-poll. The Congress got only two seats in the GHMC polls when the BJP literally challenged the supremacy of the BRS-MIM combine.
The sense of disbelief is also due to the huge gap between the incumbent BRS and the Congress. In 2018, the latter got 28 percent of votes while the BRS polled nearly 47 percent. The Congress had to cover this backlog before it registered any vote margin over the BRS.
Besides, the other X factor is how much impact the BJP will create. Though it is certain that the saffron party's seats may not even reach double digits, the fact remains that it will be a significant vote cutter, mainly damaging the Congress by splitting the anti-incumbency vote.
The political geography of the BJP is such that its strength is not spread all over the state. The BJP's strength is concentrated in a few pockets with strong nominees hitting the electoral fray. Thus, the ability of the BJP to upset the Congress apple cart is reasonably high, keeping the hopes of the KCR camp still alive.
The Karnataka Win
The Karnataka elections saw a sudden change in the fortunes of the grand old party. This is not to imply that the verdict in the neighbouring state will have much impact on Telangana. But the mandate that the Kannadigas gave to the Congress punctured the popular narrative peddled by both the BRS and the BJP that the Congress is decimated and has no chances of revival.
Even as this narrative got punctured, the BJP continued with its self-goals. The BJP has suddenly cut short the popular Praja Sangram Yatra of its state party chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar. This political outreach targeting KCR with a strong Hindutva flavour gave some much-needed momentum to the BJP. Then came the inexplicable removal of Bandi Sanjay Kumar as the state party president.
Though the BJP tried to dismiss it as a routine change of guard, it did not go well with the party cadres and voters alike. Bandi Sanjay belonged to the dominant backward class Munnuru Kapu. His vituperative anti-KCR tirade earned him a special place among the electorate disillusioned with the BRS regime, thus making the BJP a principal claimant for the anti-incumbency vote at that point in time.
The BJP leadership found it impossible to convince its voters on the rationale behind the sudden change in party leadership at a time when Bandi Sanjay was delivering rich political dividends to the party and whose role has been publicly praised by the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo.
Along with Sanjay's removal, the political fiasco over K Kavitha's arrest also proved costly for both the BJP and the BRS. The BJP raised expectations on the action to be taken by the central agencies on KCR's daughter Kavitha, which did not happen. Both these developments convinced the Telangana electorate that the BJP has arrived at an alleged clandestine deal with KCR. This led to large scaled desertion of party leaders who had earlier joined the BJP with the hope to challenge KCR.
The Congress was, therefore, a natural choice of all those who were disenchanted with the BJP and already disillusioned with the ruling BRS dispensation. This has catapulted the Congress, which anyway has strong local leadership along with some goodwill as the party that fulfilled the long-standing aspirations of the people of Telangana for a separate state.
Meanwhile, the ruling BRS, at the end of the second term, suffered more from voter fatigue than anti-incumbency. Nearly 40 MLAs of the BRS faced strong anti-incumbency at the constituency level. Yet, KCR chose to re-nominate them either with overconfidence or due to fear of a large scale rebellion on the eve of the election, if they were denied re-nomination.
The BRS seems to be a paying heavy price for this. Even KT Rama Rao acknowledged this in several media interviews in the run-up to the elections, including the one given to this author.
Congress Seems To Be the Beneficiary of Social Shifts
There exists a huge disconnect between local BRS leaders and the people.
The local leaders are facing corruption allegations. There are even allegations of corruption and nepotism in the implementation of flagship welfare schemes like double-bedroom houses for the poor and the Dalit Bandhu scheme, which provides a whopping Rs 10 lakh grant to each beneficiary household. The visible display of wealth and power by the ruling political elite, even at the local level, did not go well with the people.
The Congress seems to be the beneficiary of social shifts. The BRS had a sway over Muslim vote due to its proximity with the AIMMIM, led by Hyderabad MP Owaisi and the secular image of Chief Minister KCR. But, the Congress seems to be making a significant dent into to the Muslim vote as it has emerged as a principal challenger to the Narendra Modi juggernaut.
The state has a large presence of voters who settled in Telangana, but, enjoy affinity with the Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema region. The politics of Andhra Pradesh thus impacts Telangana voters too. The initially adverse response of the BRS to the arrest of N Chandrababu Naidu has significantly damaged the party's interests. Though the BRS tried to mitigate the damage, it failed to cut ice with the people of this region who largely shifted to the Congress. This section of voters has primarily rallied behind BRS in the past.
The young voters were completely disillusioned with the public employment created in the last 10 years not living up to their expectations, along with frequent paper leakages in the Public Service Commission examinations and their repeated postponement. Such discontent was seen even among the younger members of the families who benefited from the KCR government's welfare schemes. The Opposition narrative juxtaposed KCR's family rule with that of unemployment among the educated youth.
Thus, the call of the Congress for a change found resonance among the people after giving KCR two successive terms.
(Prof K Nageshwar is a senior political analyst, faculty member of Osmania University, and a former MLC. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
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