Telangana | BJP or Congress: who will eat into BRS vote share and how much to touch double digits?

Lok Sabha polls 2024 analysis: KCR predicts BRS downfall, BJP and Congress poised to gain from vote share loss.

With the results of Lok Sabha polls 2024 set to be out on Tuesday, an interesting comment by former Chief Minister of Telangana and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao proves that the party is expecting a huge downslide at the cost of Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

While addressing the party cadre on the State Formation Day, KCR said electoral losses were not new to the party and it won’t be demoralised by the Parliament results outcome too. This sums up the mood within the party and is in tune with several exit poll predictions.

According to a credible poll survey agency, the BRS is likely to lose around 16 to 18% vote share from its 2023 Assembly poll figures. The party polled 37.35% votes for its 39 seats in the 2023 Assembly polls, which was way down from the 46.87% votes it polled in the 2018 Assembly elections winning 88 seats.

The present share of 37.35% will be drastically reduced to near about 20%, according to the figures claimed by a few poll survey agencies. Where does this massive 17 to 18% would go is the big question and whichever party gets the lion’s share from it is likely to touch the double figures in Telangana. Both the BJP and Congress are confident of taking the bigger pie.

The Congress which polled 39.4% in 2023 Assembly elections to win 64 seats is hoping that the BRS voters, particularly women and Muslims have backed it in the Parliament elections for a variety of reasons. While women are happy with the free bus ride and 200 units of free power supply schemes, the Muslim community preferred the Congress as it saw the main challenger to the BJP at the national level.

Even Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy ensured friendly relations with the MIM after coming to power in a way forcing it to stay away from a friendly alliance with the BRS that they had in the Assembly elections. “The BRS performed well in 24 seats in the Greater Hyderabad area mainly due to the Muslim community preferring it over the Congress. We had no city leadership either to make an impression on the voters. But now, as the ruling party, we have negated those disadvantages,” argued Sama Rammohan Reddy, TPCC Media in-charge.

The other sections like Women, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and youngsters who stood behind the Congress in the Assembly elections continued to support it. “The BRS voters among these sections have preferred us over the BJP in the Parliament elections as BRS was not seen as a serious contender,” said Mr. Rammohan Reddy citing their party survey reports.