Assembly election results: Despite loss in Telangana, Congress vote share goes up, TDP suffers - Hindustan Times
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Assembly election results: Despite loss in Telangana, Congress vote share goes up, TDP suffers

Hindustan Times, Hyderabad | By
Dec 12, 2018 06:24 PM IST

This time, the Congress contested in only 100 seats, including friendly contests in four seats. Yet, it won 19 seats and its vote share has gone up to 28.4%.

The Congress may have failed to come to power in the Telangana assembly elections but it has improved its position in the state in terms of voting percentage, albeit marginally.

Deserted look outside Congress headquarters, Gandhi Bhavan in Nampally, Hyderabad, Telangana on Tuesday.(Kunal Patil/HT Photo)
Deserted look outside Congress headquarters, Gandhi Bhavan in Nampally, Hyderabad, Telangana on Tuesday.(Kunal Patil/HT Photo)

In 2014, the Congress won 21 seats out of 119 seats it contested, with a vote share of 25.02%. This time, the Congress contested in only 100 seats, including friendly contests in four seats, as it had entered into an alliance with Telugu Desam Party, CPI and Telangana Jana Samithi to form Maha Kootami or People’s Front.

Yet, it won 19 seats and its vote share has gone up to 28.4%.

The TDP, which had won 15 out of 72 assembly seats it contested in 2014 with a vote share of 14.55%, suffered heavily this time after joining the Maha Kootami.

 

It could win only two assembly seats out of the 13 it contested and its vote share shot down miserably to 3.5%. The CPI which won just one seat with 0.8% vote share in 2014 drew a blank this time. The newly formed TJS also failed to gain a foothold in the assembly elections.

Reports from several parts of Telangana revealed that there was hardly any transfer of votes from TDP and other alliance partners to the Congress due to dragging of seat sharing negotiations till the last day of nominations.

The grand alliance was formed only at the superficial level, but on the battle ground, the Congress gained little from the alliance due to lack of coordination among the cadres of alliance partners,” political analyst S Ramakrishna said.

Moreover, the TDP vote bank got eroded in most parts of Telangana due to defection of majority of its leaders, including almost all the MLAs into the Telangana Rashtra Samithi and Congress in the last four and a half years.

“As such, whatever percentage of the Congress got this time, it is mostly on its own strength. In fact, the alliance with the TDP has done more harm than good to the Congress. Otherwise, its percentage of votes and number of seats also would have been more, though not to the extent of defeating the TRS,” a Congress leader who did not wish to be quoted, said.

The fall in the voting percentage of these alliance partners has led to the improvement of vote share of the TRS from 34.04% to 46.9% — an increase of 12.86%. The party, which had won 63 seats in 2014, has improved its tally to 88 seats.

BJP spoiled Congress game

On the other hand, the BJP, which won five out of 47 seats it contested in 2014 with a voting percentage of 7.1%, managed just one seat out of 118 it contested, even though its vote share remained more or less same at 7%.

However, the BJP played spoilsport with Congress’s winning prospects in at least half a dozen seats. For example, the Congress lost in Bodhan, Kamareddy, Khanapur, Nirmal, Suryapet and Tungaturthi seats with thin margins, because the BJP bagged good number of votes there. In these constituencies, Muslims have considerable presence and they voted for the TRS, while the BJP split the Hindu votes.

At the same time, independents who contested under the banner of different political parties like Bahujan Samaj Party, Shiv Sena, All India Forward Bloc, Samajwadi Forward Bloc and Bahujan Left Front, spoiled the winning chances of the Congress in constituencies such as Bellampalli, Balkonda, Jangaon, Nagarjunagar and Vikarabad.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Srinivasa Rao is Senior Assistant Editor based out of Hyderabad covering developments in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana . He has over three decades of reporting experience.

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