Election Tracker: TDP rises in Seemandhra as YSR dips

In undivided Andhra Pradesh, the most striking change is the decline of the voteshare of the Congress and a corresponding rise for the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). Equally interesting is the fall in voteshare of YSR Congress and the marginal rise of the share of the BJP.

However, the picture is completely different in divided Andhra. In Telangana, the Congress and the TRS are neck-to-neck with both parties improving their voteshare compared to the last tracker poll in January. While in the latest poll, the Congress leads the share with 35 percent, the TRS is closely behind with 34 percent. In January, their shares were 32 and 26 respectively. Obviously, the TRS has made a substantial gain over the Congress compared to the January results. Majority of the people also said they didn’t favour a TRS-Congress merger.

In Seemandhra, while Congress is justifiably a non-player, between January and now, there seems to be a complete debacle for the YSR Congress. It’s been decisively toppled by the TDP. If they scored 45 and 33 respectively in January, in the latest poll, the TDP is leading the YSR Congress by six percentage points, while the share of YSR Congress fell by 12 points - TDP has 39 percent of the voteshare while the YSR Congress has only 33. The Congress has lost about 9 points to slide from 16 to 7 while the BJP improved its position from 3 to 7. In coastal Andhra, the TDP is doing well compared to YSR Congress (43 Vs 29), while in Rayalaseema, it’s YSR Congress which has the upper hand (41 vs 31)

In Telangana, most people gave credit for the bifurcation to the TRS, while a considerably lower number of people credited the Congress leadership in Delhi. In terms of alliances, more BJP supporters than TDP supporters, wanted a TDP-BJP alliance. The TDP supporters appeared ambivalent on the issue.

Not surprisingly, the dissatisfaction with the UPA government in Telangana decreased after the bifurcation of the state, while it rose substantially in Seemandhra.

The sentiments related to the bifurcation seemed to have coloured people’s views on the choice of their prime minister as well.

For Seemandhra, it’s unequivocally Narendra Modi while in Telangana, people favoured Modi and Rahul equally. While 30 per cent of the respondents in Seemandhra wanted Narendra Modi to be the prime minster, only 3 percent supported Rahul Gandhi, obviously an indication of the ire of people in Seemandhra against the Congress. In February, the corresponding figures were 17 and 5. The rise in share of people who favoured Modi in Seemandhra was substantially higher than that in Telangana.

So the summary of the AP story is TRS and Congress in Telangana, TDP and BJP in Seemandhra and Narendra Modi for both.