Exit polls 2014: With Telangana done, TRS is the biggest gainer

The Congress-led UPA government may have pushed through the state of Telangana, but if exit polls are to be believed the Telangana Rashtra Samiti may be the biggest gainer in the state, having represented the cause for far longer. The result could also mean that the BJP will be looking at whether it can incorporate TRS into the NDA, even while holding on to present ally TDP. According to the IBN-Lokniti CSDS National Election Tracker exit poll survey, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti is expected to win 8-12 seats while the Congress is expected to win 3-5 seats. The BJP-TDP alliance is only going to get 2-4 seats, the survey projected. However, the Times Now-ORG survey predicted a far more divided result with the TRS expected to win 9 of the seats in the newly created state. The TDP-BJP alliance will win only 2 seats in the new state, it said. The Congress will come in second with 4 seats, despite attempting to take credit for the formation of the new state and the Left Front will win 2 seats in the state, the survey predicted. The ABP News survey has said that the TRS will win 8 seats.  The survey claimed the TRS is expected to garner the maximum vote share with 37 percent of the vote share, thanks to it leading the charge for the creation of the new state. This vote share is over double what the party recorded in the 2009 elections, when it polled just 15 percent of the vote share. [caption id=“attachment_1520133” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Will KCR hold the key to power in Telangana? PTI[/caption] The Congress, despite claiming the credit for finally creating the state, is expected to emerge the second in the state with 31 percent. The survey finds that the party’s vote share fell almost 5 percent from the 2009 election and is even lower than what the pre-poll survey predicted. The BJP-TDP alliance is expected to get 21 percent of the vote share. The survey found while the TRS enjoys the maximum support among older voters above 36 years of age, while the Congress still enjoys the highest support among the young voters. The exit poll found that when it came to giving credit to the formation of the new state, the highest number of respondents gave credit to the Congress. The second highest numbers gave credit to the TRS. However, the credit for the formation of the state seems to have evenly divided among the parties. A majority of the respondents also felt that the Congress government had handled the splitting process efficiently. When it came to picking a prime ministerial candidate, a majority of the respondents picked BJP’s Narendra Modi. But the survey also found that for a majority of the voters the prime ministerial candidate wasn’t a major factor while casting their ballot, which may explain why the party isn’t making sizeable gains in the new state.