For days now I have been complaining about a total lack of coverage regarding Telangana elections in the so called “national” media. And because of the language barrier it is impossible for me to read the local media there.

Most reports I have seen are roughly of the same character. They say that TRS had a big lead to begin with, but Congress sewing up the “Mahakutami” with TDP (as also TJS and CPI) has made the competition stiff for TRS.

Maybe there are other local dynamics involved, but based on simple thumb rules, I don’t see KCR losing this election. Maybe there won’t be a sweep like he hoped for, but they should win comfortably.

The rules here are relatively simple. First of all, I don’t believe much in last minute swings, neither towards BJP in Rajasthan nor towards Congress in Madhya Pradesh. Most often, this is a desperate rumor spread by the losing side.

Same with TRS. They have been ahead. They are ahead. Why should the verdict suddenly change now? KCR is by far the most popular leader. Everyone admits that much. Congress organization in Telangana is a pale shadow of its former self. Congress has gone to the people only 1 month before the election.

Now about the supposed arithmetic advantage of the Mahakutami. The fact that Cong+TDP polled more votes than TRS in 2014. But will TDP be able to sustain its vote share?

Here is another simple thumb rule. Regional parties, based around one single leader can never have influence in more than one state. I have talked about this rule multiple times. A single leader party cannot allow his “equals” to crop up in other states. This is essentially why AAP found it impossible to grow across state lines and why it collapsed in Punjab. For Kejriwal, the AAP leadership in Punjab was always a threat. He could never fully commit himself to support his own party there.

For a bigger example, take BSP. For BSP, there is a huge Dalit votebank for the taking just about anywhere, but the party remains a bit player everywhere outside Uttar Pradesh. Why? Because Mayawati cannot allow a second BSP leader to crop up. It would hurt her control over her party.

And as and when a state gets broken up, all regional parties shrivel up and disappear from one of the two new states. The RJD and JDU vanished from Jharkhand. The SP and BSP vanished from Uttarakhand.

How can TDP sustain itself in Telangana? There’s nobody to lead them.

Maybe there are local dynamics at play here that I could be missing. Maybe there are a lot of “Andhra origin” folks in Telangana who will vote for TDP. This issue would be maximum around the city of Hyderabad. There are 15 seats in Hyderabad.

But then, doesn’t the AIMIM already control 7 seats from Hyderabad? They will win those again as they always have. The BJP will pocket a few seats as well. So that’s 10-11 seats out of 15 that are already out of reach for Mahakutami. Where is the space left for a handful of TDP voters to influence the election?

And then I don’t think these TDP voters even exist any longer. When Jharkhand was carved out, there was similar talk about “Biharis living in Jharkhand” voting for the regional parties from Bihar. It never actually happened. There’s always going to be a bit of friction between X origin people living in Y state. But come on.. it’s just the state next door. After four and a half years, people couldn’t really care that much. These differences tend to be exaggerated by so called analysts. And why would TDP voters go for Congress anyway that they blame for dividing the state?

So, if you ask me, TDP will lose massive chunks of voters. There is no way you can add up the vote shares from 2014 and apply that arithmetic of Cong+TDP now.

The reason I am writing this article today is that I finally found the data point I was looking for. In 2014 elections, the TRS would have won 51 seats if there had been an alliance between Cong and TDP. The majority mark in Telangana is just 60.

In 2014, Cong+TDP would have got 40% of the vote and TRS got 34%.

Of the 40%, TDP got 15% and Congress 25%.

Take out half of TDP’s 15% and you immediately see that Cong+TDP is now behind TRS. Also, considering the vote-seat distribution, TRS would have got 51 seats already in 2014 even with a Cong+TDP alliance. Now that they have a lead in vote shares over the combined Cong+TDP alliance, however small, there is really no chance of them missing out on those extra 9 seats needed to form the government.

The final signal for me has been the BJP’s approach to these elections. If there was a serious threat of TRS losing, there is no doubt that BJP would have strategically folded itself down in Telangana. If BJP gives even a handful of its votes to TRS in every seat, KCR will win easily.

Rather the BJP has sharpened its attacks on KCR, showing that they are quite certain that Congress isn’t coming to power in Telangana. If you ask me, I will apply another thumb rule and say that BJP will soak up quite a few anti-incumbency votes. If somebody merely wishes to cast a “protest vote” why would that person go for the insipid TDP that has no future in Telangana? Why not give that vote to a rising BJP? The drummed up “anti-BJP sentiment” among Andhra voters proved to be a complete dud. It was nothing more than a TDP propaganda offensive which ran out of steam on its own. Even Naidu doesn’t talk about it any more.

I just wanted to finish this post with an amusing anecdote about “last minute swings”. In 2010 in Bihar, everyone knew that JDU and BJP were winning. A desperate secular media decided to spread the rumor of an “undercurrent” for RJD at the last moment. Through their words and articles, they told everyone about this silent wave of support building up for Lalu.

You know what happened? The rumor that Lutyens started spread like wildfire. The words were heard all across Bihar : “Lalu raj wapas aa raha hai” (Lalu rule is coming back). And Biharis came rushing out of their homes in unprecedented numbers to ensure that Lalu Yadav was stopped at all costs. The result? NDA won an amazing 206 out of 243 seats and Lalu went home with 22 🙂