HYDERABAD: BJP couldn’t have asked for a better result in the Lok Sabha elections in Telangana. It managed to wrest control of two TRS strongholds, Nizamabad and Karimnagar and won two other seats, Adilabad and Secunderabad. A few months ago, even BJP wouldn’t have believed this could happen. So, how did it?
It seems BJP benefited from swing votes from the Congress in all four seats. This trend was clearest in Nizamabad and Karimnagar.
For instance, in the five segments of Nizamabad (Nizamabad Rural, Balkonda, Armoor, Jagtial and Korutla), Congress got less than 9,000 votes. Congress’ Madhu Yaskhi Goud got only 69,173 votes in total. BJP’s D Arvind pocketed 4,80,584 votes, 70,000 more than TRS’ K Kavitha. BJP sources told Express that Goud had, in fact, at a public meeting asked voters to defeat Kavitha, even if it meant voting for BJP.
In Karimnagar too, Congress polled around 20,000 votes fewer than it did in the 2018 Assembly elections in four segments. Congress’ Ponnam Prabhakar, who was the candidate from Karimnagar Assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies, polled 19,111 fewer votes in the segment this time. Interestingly, in six out of seven Assembly segments in Karimnagar, Congress was trailing in the second position in 2018 polls. BJP general secretary P Muralidhar Rao dismissed allegations of Congress leaders colluding with BJP. “I do not believe such rumours. You can see clearly that there has been overall shift of voters from Congress to BJP,” he said.
On the other hand, Adilabad saw TRS’ vote share transferred to BJP in four Assembly segments. Except for Asifabad, the pink party enjoyed a majority in all the Assembly segments, but it could not win.