Hyderabad: Parties get a different treatment for Lok Sabha polls

Hyderabad: Most unusually, voters have supported different parties within a short span of time in Telangana. A similar trend was reflected in the Lok Sabha results on Thursday in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh which the Congress had won in November, and where the BJP made a stunning comeback. Gujarat gave the Congress hope but the party was wiped out this time.

This trend was more starkly visible in Odisha where the Biju Janata Dal retained power for an unprecedented fourth term.

As far as Telangana is concerned, voters gave the TRS 88 out of 117 Assembly seats in December, but they gave the party less than half the Lok Sabha seats barely six months later.

With the different results in Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, it is evident that voters are certainly voting differently for the Assembly and Lok Sabha.

Keeping this in view, Telangana Rashtra Samithi chief Mr. K Chandrasekhar Rao acted cleverly in having elections to separately to the Assembly, otherwise he could have been crushed under the weight of the national parties. Soon after the results of the Assembly in December 2018, KCR, told media persons that if the TRS had gone for the Assembly elections along with Lok Sabha, it would not have got the comfortable mandate it did as the Lok Sabha elections would be held on the performance of Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi and Congress chief Rahul Gandhi.  

As the TRS settles down with 8 Lok Sabha seats when compared with 11 seats in the 2014 elections, party leaders are admitting privately that as the party chief wanted no role for anyone, but himself and his family in the party, this was also one of the reasons for the party losing seats and his daughter bearing the brunt of defeat.

Dr. K Lakshman, BJP state president said that people invariably vote differently in the Lok Sabha elections as they are meant to elect an able and stable government.

He pointed out that sentiments and other local factors play a key role in the Assembly elections. He said that as Prime Minister Narendra Modi had given an able and stable government for five years, the people of Telangana had showed confidence in him and elected 4 MPs in the state.

Mr. Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, Congress legislature party leader said that people of the state had realized the arrogance of the KCR family and the results of the Lok Sabha in the state were an indication that people were distancing from the TRS. He said that people were fed up with KCR encouraging defections of the MLAs in an unholy manner.

Dr. K Kesava Rao, general secretary of the TRS said that though the party had expected more than 15 seats, people had given a mandate for 9 seats and the party will certainly review reasons for losing the seats. While disagreeing with the argument of the BJP that the TRS was shattered in the state before the charisma of PM Mr. Modi, he pointed out if the PM’s charisma worked, why did the Congress win 3 seats in the state.