New Delhi: The TRS is not doing as well as predicted by the exit polls, leading in just eight of the state’s 17 seats. The TRS won the assembly polls in the state in December 2018 comfortably, and was expected to win upwards of its 2014 tally of 11. The BJP has surged in the state, currently leading in four seats. The Congress is leading also leading in four seats. The AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi is leading in the Hyderabad seat by almost 2 lakh votes.
Kalvakuntla Kavitha, daughter of TRS chief and current MP from Nizamabad, is trailing in her seat to the BJP candidate by 44,337 votes.
BJP is leading in 4 seats in Telangana, a surprise for the largely-TRS dominated state. The 4 constituencies in which BJP is leading is Adilabad, Karimnagar, Nizamabad and Secunderabad.
In Adilabad, the BJP candidate is leading by about 51,000 over the TRS candidate. In Karimnagar, the BJP candidate is about 85,000 votes over the TRS candidate. In Secunderabad, the BJP’s G. Kishan Reddy is leading by 29,51 votes.
The Congress’s prominent face and former minister, Renuka Chowdhry is trailing in Khamam to the TRS.
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With the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in a seemingly strong position, Telangana voted for the Lok Sabha for the first time as a divided entity in the 2019 general elections. Nearly all of the seats look fairly comfortable in the hands of the TRS.
K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), the state’s current chief minister and leader of the TRS, has been wrangling for a non-BJP, non-Congress “federal front”, but his coalition includes just the YSR Congress Party at this conjecture. The party is also in an informal alliance with Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM). TRS is contest 16 seats, while the AIMIM is contesting one – Hyderabad.
The Congress did not reap the rewards it expected after passing the Bill to create the state. The BJP also has a limited presence in the state.
In the 2014 elections, the united Andhra Pradesh had 42 parliament seats. The TDP, TRS, INC and BJP won 16, 11, 2 and 3 seats respectively. If one looks only at Telangana’s data from the 2014 national elections, the TRS won 11 out of the 17 seats and the Congress won 2. The TDP, YSRCP and BJP won 1 seat each. Three MPs from opposition parties shifted loyalties to the TRS soon after the results were announced.
In the current parliament the TRS had in the 14 MPs in the Lok Sabha and 6 in the Rajya Sabha.
TRS clear favourite, but Congress may pick up a few
The Congress is the second biggest player in Telangana, but the TRS is the clear leader in the state by a huge margin. While the TRS won 11 seats in the 2014 general election, Congress won only 2. But a significant detail lies in their vote shares: The TRS had a vote share of 34.9%, while the Congress could muster only 24.7%.
While the ruling-TRS largely holds sway over almost all the seats, it has left the Hyderabad seat for the AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi. Owaisi, a leader of significant national public image, has represented the constituency since 2004. His party has held sway over Hyderabad, the capital city of Telangana, since 1989.
Exit polls predict a TRS win
The lack of any major competitor to the TRS is reflected in the exit polls, which have also predicted a clear victory for the TRS. The polls from Times Now, IndiaToday, Chanakya, Republic and News18 have predicted between 10 to 15 seats for the TRS, out of 17.
The TRS was formed in 2001, as a break away party from the TDP. The TDP has stayed away from the elections in Telangana, choosing to focus on the Andhra Pradesh elections, where it is the ruling party. Its current leader is N. Chandrababu Naidu, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh.
The TRS had an almost single point agenda to create a separate Telangana state. After Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated in 2014, the capital city of Hyderabad was retained by Telangana. Since then, the TRS has slowly but surely obliterated all opposition, slowly absorbing members from rival parties. In the state’s assembly elections, held in December 2018, the party was able to win 90 of the state’s 117 assembly seats. Since then, several legislators have crossed over to the ruling party, taking its tally to the three-figure mark.
Federal front agenda
After ensuring domination in the state, KCR has set his sights on national politics. He has been a proponent of a ‘federal front’, comprising solely of regional parties. He is opposed to both the BJP and the Congress, as he believes national parties cannot respect regional interests or uphold the federal structure of the Indian government.
While he began with high profile visits to his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee, KCR’s attempts petered off. Before the general elections began, only Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy’s YSR Congress party was in KCR’s proposed ‘federal front’. Since then, the Telangana chief minister has met Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan, DMK leader M.K. Stalin and has reached out to Karnataka CM H.D. Kumaraswamy.
The exit polls may have dampened KCR’s hopes of a ‘federal front’, but the TRS leader is a master strategist who can pull a rabbit out of the hat. In case of a hung verdict, KCR may join either the NDA or the UPA for a good bargain.