2018 assembly election results analysis: part 4

A quick recap

In the first part of this report, I summarized the 2018 Telangana mandate including a historical perspective. The second part focused on the data & analytical methodology. The latest i.e. part 3 sizes the magnitude of the verdict as well as regional & demographic trends.

The present post looks at various factors including alliance dynamics and party wise primers.

UPA "think tank" core approach

In 2014, Congress & CPI forged an alliance and won 25.9% of the votes. This alliance was somewhat cohesive with just one dissonant note i.e. CPI put up a lone extra candidate over its allocated 6 seats. TDP & BJP fought the elections together under the NDA umbrella contesting 72 & 45 constituencies respectively. The alliance was broadly smooth (just one rebel candidate from each party) and polled 21.5% of the votes (TDP:BJP split 14.5%:7.0%) of the votes.

The raison d'etre of the present alliance is the apparent arithmetic: adding 25.9% & 14.5% yields 40.4%, a 6.4% advantage over TRS's 2014 vote share of 34.0%. A simple "back-of-the-envelope" calculation assuming complete vote transfer between UPA & TDP 2014 votes shows TRS losing 12 of the 63 seats it won in 2014.

There are several serious problems with this oversimplified approach. For starters, even in the highly unlikely situation of the other 56 seats going against TRS once more, it would still remain the single largest party with 51 seats.

The next big question is of course chemistry. Would the alliance actually work on the ground? Would votes transfer to allies when the support base is not uniform in composition, enthusiasm & general makeup?

There are several other serious issues with the proposed alliance. For instance, how can we measure TDP votes when it fought as a part of NDA? In addition, even the most optimistic TDP supporters acknowledge that the party's base in Telangana eroded significantly. Finally it is universally agreed that TRS grew a good deal in the last five years making inroads into hitherto uncharted areas & voter groups.

Pro-UPA "experts" conceded all these points but argued the Congress too grew since 2014 and further claimed TJS would partially offset the TDP losses. UPA strength was estimated around 40% (30% to Congress and 4-5% each to TDP & TJS) against a near identical TRS share. It was further argued the UPA's alleged focus in urban & semi-urban areas would be helpful vis-à-vis TRS's better distributed vote bank. There were frequent references to an allegedly superior "poll management plan" resting on the pillars of social engineering, promotional strategy & targeted campaign planning championed by TDP supremo Naidu, said to be the modern day Chanakya!

UPA dynamics

Let us first look at the two minor alliance partners before going on to the Congress-TDP equations.

As we saw earlier, CPI came a cropper with a semi-decent performance in just one of its three seats. Their contribution to the alliance can be therefore said to be near zero, especially when the seat allocation was broadly based on their own assessment of alleged local strength. Their only consolation can be that CPM performed equally badly.

For TJS this election was a disaster right from seat sharing. They competed with Congress in four of the eight constituencies it fought, Three of the other seats were in any case deemed unwinnable. Prof. Kodandaram was effectively reduced to be the proverbial curry leaf in biryani during the campaign. Even with all these constraints, TJS electoral debut (just 0.5% of the votes) was a colossal failure paling even before the 2.6% obtained by LSP in 2009! Should TJS have allied with BJP? While they would have certainly received greater respect, the end result would have been similar. Kodandaram must wake up to the reality of the serious drubbing if (a big if in my view) TJS is to have even a modest electoral future.

Did Congress & TDP jell well? The presence & performance of Congress rebels in comparison with previous can be a useful pointer:

Election *	Tally **	Percent ***
1989	15	2.9%
1994	26	5.4%
1999	18	2.6%
2004	22	4.3%
2009	10	1.7%
2014	16	1.8%
2018	24	1.6%

* Earlier data unavailable or not considered reliable

* Congress rebels contesting in the election

** Vote share of such rebels

The findings are summarized below:

·         The rebellion impact is akin to "atmospheric noise" that never goes below certain levels and hence must be accepted as a normal phenomenon occurring irrespective of alliance arithmetic

·         2018 Congress rebellion appears at par with previous alliance situations but the impact of these rebels is highly muted. Remember when Congress & TRS paired up in 2004, the rebels took away nearly a tenth of the UPA vote: the present case comes nowhere close

·         Even this minor impact was offset by the presence of 14 TRS rebels polling a slightly higher 1.7%

We can safely conclude Congress voters did broadly switch to TDP as & when required (and vice-versa even though this is less important due to the shrinking TDP base) This is also borne out by anecdotal evidence. As we saw during the 2016 municipal elections, TDP polled 2.4% of the votes in Greater Warangal failing to retain deposit in 57 of the 58 wards of the city and one candidate polling a grand total of 4 votes! To everyone's shock, UPA allocated # 105 Warangal West to TDP with Revuri Prakash Reddy contesting a seat (Hanamkonda in its previous incarnation) that did not see a TDP candidate after 1994. Congress aspirant Naini Rajender Reddy protested loudly with the TV cameras lapping up the dissent eagerly. In the end however TDP managed to secure 31.2% of the votes, a feat that can be ascribed only to total unswerving Congress support in the face of an extremely unpopular alliance choice.

Agreeing Congress-TDP alliance worked out on the ground let us move to the more pertinent question: was it useful? Did Congress benefit by tying up with an admittedly shrinking party? Ignoring "logistics support" for the moment and concentrating only on votes I drew up a simple district wise "what-if" chart:

District	UPA *	TDP *	UPA **	2018	Change
Adilabad	24.8%	8.5%	33.3%	31.0%	-2.3%
Nizamabad	30.4%	6.5%	36.9%	35.7%	-1.2%
Karimnagar	25.7%	5.3%	31.0%	31.6%	0.6%
Medak	30.0%	12.4%	42.4%	31.0%	-11.4%
Ranga Reddy	22.8%	24.9%	47.7%	32.2%	-15.5%
Hyderabad	12.5%	13.6%	26.1%	18.9%	-7.2%
Mahabubnagar	33.0%	13.4%	46.4%	30.7%	-15.7%
Nalgonda	33.1%	14.2%	47.3%	40.1%	-7.2%
Warangal	26.3%	12.1%	38.4%	35.0%	-3.4%
Khammam	23.5%	27.5%	51.0%	43.8%	-7.2%

* 2014 performance

* 2014 joint performance assuming total & perfect transfer

The analysis may be summarized as under:

·         UPA 2018 fell short of the total UPA + TDP vote share in all districts except Karimnagar where we see a miniscule gain

·         In 6 districts (Adilabad, Nizamabad, Karimnagar, Medak, Mahabubnagar & Warangal) the 2018 UPA vote share fails to breach the 2014 TRS levels. In other words, TRS could have stayed static and yet remained ahead of the expanded grand alliance J

·         In Mahabubnagar, UPA fell shy even against its own 2014 performance!

The conclusions are resoundingly clear: allying with TDP yielded negligible if any electoral benefits to Congress. TDP transferred its dwindling vote bank to the alliance but this was of no material consequence. As the defacto challenger, Congress could possibly have attracted a major chunk of this vote even without an alliance.

Did Congress voters desert the party due to what was widely believed to be an unholy alliance with TDP, a party generally perceived to be inimical to Telangana interests? If true this carries a strong lesson that Congress can ignore only at its peril.

On balance it is evident that Congress subsidized the allies rather than the other way round. The decision in the "gobble or ally" option turned out incorrect with the outsourcing experiment going badly wrong.

On a positive note, all is not lost as Congress is live and kicking. The situation is much better than "down but not out" as Congress is not even down. As we will see later the Congress candidates that did win are mostly of the "card carrying loyalist" variety with all but a few of the parachutes, coverts and "forward troops" eating humble pie. If the party can shake off the discredited elements, gather its base and generally get its act together, it can live to fight other battles. With Rahul Gandhi preoccupied with the upcoming Loksabha battle and focusing on the Hindi heartland, I do not expect any shakeup in the near future. Will TRS help by making an unforced or two? This remains to be seen.

As for the TDP, the present situation represents a historical low point not seen even during the 2010 Telangana by-elections when the party could still garner 6.7% of the votes. In 2014 TDP piggybacked on the Narendra Modi wave to survive but all options (left, TRS, BJP and even the Congress) are now exhausted. Their leaders must come to grip with the fact it is wiped out in Telangana with no conceivable way to bounce back. The best advice any one can give them is to cut costs and exit unless Congress can be persuaded to carry the failing outfit some more time.

BJP impact

A common refrain of pro-UPA elements throughout the campaign was that TRS & BJP colluded behind the scenes and the latter played spoilsport by splitting anti-TRS votes. Rahul Gandhi stressed the point a good deal though some of it was lost in translation. Naidu too has taken to painting TRS, YCP et al with the same "mota Modi chota Modi" brush.

I analyzed this matter by constructing a maha gatbandhan (MGB) of UPA + BJP. The salient features of this ideologically improbable statistical entity are as follows:

·         BJP candidates fielded in the 14 constituencies where the party outscored UPA

·         TDP, TJS & CPI seat share reduced to half in an effort to offset rebel trouble

·         Congress too foregoing a handful of seats

·         MGB thus becomes a previously unthinkable Congress-BJP alliance backed by three fringe parties

Assuming a theoretical total unquestioned transfers, the expanded super alliance would wrest 15 seats from TRS in addition to winning # 63 Nampalli from Majlis. These gains would accrue 11:5 between the two dominant partners viz. Congress & BJP. TRS would still the form the government with 73 seats in its kitty. In a real world of course, the actual situation would more likely have been much more depressing.

This dismal scenario is not surprising given the fact that TRS vote advantage is a staggering 14.1% while BJP scored just 7.1% of the votes.

Let us now review BJP performance to discover any available trends. 2009 is a good baseline for this comparison as it is the last time they fought on their own. The district wise results are tabulated below:

District	2009	2018	Change
Adilabad	3.9%	9.9%	6.0%
Nizamabad	6.8%	8.2%	1.4%
Karimnagar	5.9%	6.3%	0.4%
Medak	3.8%	6.2%	2.4%
Ranga Reddy	6.6%	8.2%	1.6%
Hyderabad	15.0%	18.2%	3.2%
Mahabubnagar	4.5%	6.2%	1.7%
Nalgonda	2.4%	3.9%	1.5%
Warangal	2.4%	2.6%	0.2%
Khammam	0.9%	1.0%	0.1%

On a positive note BJP improved in every district with Hyderabad & Adilabad looking quite decent. Nizamabad & Ranga Reddy districts are somewhat promising though much short of expectations.

Karimnagar, Medak & Mahabubnagar must be considered serious disappointments indicating a serious tactical failure. Importing a rabble rousing Swami from Andhra did not work out!

Even the modest improvement is broadly restricted to urban areas. The days of initiatives similar to Vanvasi Kalyan Asram are clearly nowhere in the picture. The city based leadership has clearly failed the party once more.

Why should we even bother looking at BJP when the party is in an "also ran" situation? The main reason is that this is the only party among dozens to exhibit any stamina in Telangana. A subjective assessment of BJP's strength around 10% with a good share of their votes going over to UPA tactically could actually be reasonably accurate.

With LSP, YCP & TDP fading away and others like TJS & JSP failing to take off, even a modest but steady performance must be treated with some respect. The fact that BJP has some kind of an ideological core base can sustain it in lean years, an advantage not available to "big tent" parties like YCP & TDP that need a higher threshold level in order to survive.

While analyzing the 2016 GHMC elections, I used two alternate methods to figure out BJP's "true strength" arriving at two possible answers: 12.4% or 13.0%. in the current elections, they exceeded my estimations by scoring 13.5% of the votes in the Hyderabad region. Because it is generally agreed the party has been continuously losing votes, we can interpolate their Hyderabad strength at 15%+ in 2016  and 18-20% in 2014. Recapturing this level can be used as a near term target for the party's city based leaders.

2018 assembly election results analysis: part 3

In the first part of this report, I summarized the 2018 Telangana mandate including a historical perspective. The second part focused on the data & analytical methodology.

The present post attempts to size the magnitude of the verdict by capturing the true scope this victory.

"Width" of the mandate

We already saw the "depth" of the mandate was at a four decade historical high point of 46.9%. Let us now turn to the "width" of the mandate to check if the positive vote was unduly skewed in favor of the winnable seats. By verifying the rank scored by various candidates we find:

·         Apart from winning 88 seats, TRS stood second in 25 other constituencies. The party candidates occupied third or lower positions in just 6 places

·         Majlis did exceedingly well with just one lone candidate ending up in the third place

·         UPA candidates ended up third or lower in 24 constituencies

·         BJP fared particularly bad with 108 candidates failing to finish in the top two places

·         BLF gave BJP good company with all its 107 candidates performing in a like manner

·         SFB, the formation that obtained almost all its votes due to symbol confusion, ended up third in 21 of the 63 constituencies it contested J

Going to the opposite question, did the winners just scrape through? I will analyze the 119 winners using three different yardsticks: majority scored, vote share & vote advantage.

Thanneeru Harish Rao, TRS candidate from # 33 Siddipet posted a majority of 118,699 votes surpassing the 2004 Charminar record of 107,921 held by Majlis's Syed Ahmed Pasha Quadri (who incidentally shifted and won from Yakutpura this time). Other "majority headlines" are listed below:

·         Including Harish Rao, 18 candidates (15 from TRS, rest Majlis) won with a 50,000+ majority. In 2014, by contrast, this feat was achieved by 15 individuals (TRS: 11, Majlis & NDA: 2 each)

·         A total of 70 candidates won by a convincing 20,000+ margin with TRS, Majlis, UPA & OTH share at 60:6:3:1

Coming to candidate vote shares, Harish Rao is once again the leader equaling the 1985 record of 78.6%. A total of 60 candidates (just above the halfway mark) broke the 50% vote mark with TRS & Majlis accounting for 55 against UPA's tally of 5. Only 12 winners fell below the 40% "low water mark" with TRS, Majlis, UPA & OTH share at 7:3:1:1.

The vote advantage situation shows similar trends. As you probably expect by now, Harish Rao's advantage of 71.1% over his nearest opponent stands out as the biggest winner. 61 candidates in all won by convincing 15%+ margins with TRS, Majlis, UPA & OTH sharing the honors at 53:6:1:1.

A few sidelights provide interesting albeit anecdotal light:

·         Thatiparthi Jeevan Reddy, the senior Congress leader considered to be a Chief Minister (CM) aspirant lost from his pocket borough # 21 Jagtial by a margin of 61,185 votes. The interesting fact that his longtime rival L. Ramana, the state TDP president, "sacrificed" this seat and plumped for his former rival did not impress the electorate one little bit who gave him a mere 27.0% of their votes

·         Dr. Nagam Janardhan Reddy, another CM aspirant who traveled to  the Congress from TDP via BJP managed to secure a shockingly low 28.6% vote share and lost by an equally impressive gap of 54,354 votes in his traditional seat at # 81 Nagarkurnool

·         Dr. Gillela Chinna Reddy, yet another Congress CM aspirant, did slightly better at 32.5% and fall short by 51,685 votes in his longtime constituency of # 78 Wanaparthy

·         State BJP president Dr. K. Laxman ended up in the third position with just 21.3% of the votes at # 57 Musheerabad

·         Ponnam Prabhakar, former MP & state Congress "working president" too ended third with only 19.9% of the # 26 Karimnagar voters preferring him

·         Chada Venkat Reddy, the state CPI president, polled an embarrassing 24.9% score and lost by the huge margin of 70,530 votes from # 32 Husnabad. On a tragi-comic note, this was CPI's best performance J

·         Chundru Venkata Suhasini of the TDP whose family tree is a virtual "Who's who" of Andhra politics & Telugu movies, polled a grossly inadequate 32.7% (a disadvantage of 19.1%) and crashed by 41,049 votes from # 46 Kukatpally

·         Senior TDP leader Kothakota Dayakar Reddy suffered the ignominy of losing his deposit by polling less than a sixth of the votes at # 77 Makthal

The conclusion is inescapable. TRS not only won big but also put up a resounding win with convincing depth & width.

Regional trends

As one can expect in a wave of this nature, almost the entire state was gripped by strong pro-TRS winds. The only "outliers" that bucked the trend to some extent were Khammam district where UPA held a slender 3.2% edge over TRS and Hyderabad Loksabha constituency ("old city") where Majlis outscored BJP, TRS & UPA together by 2.5%.

The regional highlights of the result are tabulated below:

Region	TRS	UPA	BJP	Majlis	TRS>UPA	Change *
North	50.4%	32.7%	6.4%	0.0%	17.7%	4.3%
Hyderabad	40.3%	26.4%	13.5%	13.4%	13.9%	20.7%
South	48.0%	34.4%	5.2%	0.0%	13.6%	13.8%
Khammam	40.6%	43.8%	1.0%	0.0%	-3.2%	31.1%
Total	46.9%	32.8%	7.1%	2.7%	14.1%	12.9%
Total **	49.1%	32.9%	7.0%	0.6%	16.2%
Hyderabad **	47.5%	30.7%	11.9%	3.2%	16.8%

The data tabulated by district is as shown below:

District	TRS	UPA	BJP	Majlis	TRS>UPA	Change *
Adilabad	45.2%	31.0%	9.9%	0.0%	14.2%	2.3%
Nizamabad	47.0%	35.7%	8.2%	0.0%	11.3%	1.6%
Karimnagar	51.3%	31.6%	6.3%	0.0%	19.7%	3.0%
Medak	56.5%	31.0%	6.2%	0.0%	25.5%	9.3%
Ranga Reddy	47.6%	32.2%	8.2%	1.5%	15.4%	18.7%
Hyderabad	31.6%	18.9%	18.2%	25.4%	12.7%	18.0%
Mahabubnagar	50.4%	30.7%	6.2%	0.0%	19.7%	14.3%
Nalgonda	45.7%	40.1%	3.9%	0.0%	5.6%	15.2%
Warangal	50.6%	35.0%	2.6%	0.0%	15.6%	5.7%
Khammam	40.6%	43.8%	1.0%	0.0%	-3.2%	31.1%

* TRS vote gain over its own 2014 performance

** Excluding the applicable outliers

The following conclusions may be drawn:

·         TRS outperformed UPA in all geographies & districts except the Khammam district. Even in Khammam, the party reached a very respectable position by more than quadrupling its vote share.

·         Contrary to what one may have expected in "normal due course" TRS managed to improve over its already impressive 2014 performance (46.1%) in North Telangana

·         TRS achieved heady gains in the South Telangana & Hyderabad regions reaching a nearly unbeatable position

·         In four districts (Karimnagar, Medak, Mahabubnagar & Warangal), TRS crossed the statistically invincible 50% mark with its Medak performance reaching heady levels reached only in dreams!

·         TRS enjoys a significant double digit vote advantage over UPA in eight districts. Apart from Khammam where UPA achieved a slight 3.2% edge, only Nalgonda offers a little bit of "target practice" to the unfortunate folks

·         In Hyderabad district TRS is significantly ahead of both UPA & BJP on its own. If you add the Majlis votes, it looks better even compared to Medak

In the Hyderabad region TRS broadly repeated its 2016 performance effectively burying the Hyderabad UT bogey frequently raised by educated web & media savvy Andhra folks during their vigorously opposing the Telangana statehood movement. This lobby may officially be considered dead J

As mentioned earlier, I did track the voting performance in the 31 "new districts". Apart from the fact the volume would make for bulky presentation, these pose an additional analytical challenge arising from the fact many assembly constituencies cross over district boundaries. I "solved" the problem by force fitting every constituency to a single district using a not-so-scientific knowledge based on my knowledge. The detailed analysis together with the constituency-district map I used is available on request. I will summarize the broad conclusions for everyone's benefit below:

·         TRS broke the 50% vote mark in 13 of the 31 districts including three cases (Siddipet, Sircilla & Wanaparthy in that order) going over the 60% "flood limit"

·         TRS outperformed UPA in 28 of the 31 districts with UPA leading in just three cases (Bhupalpalle, Kothagudem & Khammam in that order)

·         Compared to 2014, TRS gained vote share in 24 of the 31 districts with just two cases (Mancherial & Peddapalle) recording a drop of over 5%. There is probably no need to lose any sleep even in these cases as the fall appears to stem from a "good present vs. great past" comparison (e.g. 2014 Mancherial was a heady 58.2%)

Urban-rural "divide"

Did urban voters behave differently from the rural ones? The following table shows patterns across the four population density categories defined earlier.

District	TRS	UPA	BJP	Majlis	Share *
Urban	43.8%	27.7%	11.5%	8.0%	34.0%
Semi-urban	50.3%	33.8%	5.6%	0.0%	13.0%
Semi-rural	49.6%	33.5%	4.2%	0.0%	16.7%
Rural	47.2%	36.9%	4.8%	0.0%	36.3%
Urban **	48.2%	30.1%	10.3%	1.7%	29.5%

* Contribution of the segment as a percentage of votes in the state

** Excluding Hyderabad Loksabha

The only discernible pattern here is the BJP's predictably respectable performance in the urban areas. The "explanation" offered by a few "experts" that TRS did well only in the rural areas is clearly negated. In fact, it is in the rural areas that UPA came closer to TRS (10.2% against the overall 14.1%).

Analysis of "select demographics"

As explained earlier, I picked four demarcation parameters and analyzed the polling pattern in constituencies characterized by the selected parameter. Please note this categorization is neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive internally. I reiterate these patterns pertain to the constituencies and may or may not represent the mood of the "defining demographic".

Characteristic	Count *	Share **	TRS	Change ***
Coal belt	14	10.4%	40.0%	6.4%
Distress	24	19.5%	48.9%	8.6%
Muslims	23	19.3%	47.9%	18.7%
Settlers	11	9.4%	51.0%	19.3%

* Count of constituencies impacted by the defined parameter

** Contribution of the segment as a percentage of votes in the state

*** TRS vote gain over its own 2014 performance

TRS clearly made deep inroads in all the categories with the coal belt being the only area that may need to be targeted for further growth. It is possible (or even probable) that this may be due to the non-miner population (e.g. tribal jhum farmers).

Loksabha elections forecast

As everyone knows the general elections are due in a few weeks. What will happen if Loksabha elections are held today? Let us assume for the moment UPA stays intact and the voters act broadly similar to the assembly elections.

Majlis is sitting pretty in the Hyderabad constituency and will breast the tape comfortably.

If (a big if?) UPA can survive the debacle debate and hold its act together, it may be able to pull off a win in Khammam where it had a 1.5% advantage. To do so, they would have to field a strong Congress candidate (no sacrifices to the cause of the alliance please!) and run a tight warlike campaign. It might help Congress if TRS makes an unforced error or two! This position can change as the situation develops dynamically due to internal wrangles, heartburn & low morale so common after such a calamity. In view of the fluidity, I will classify this seat as a tossup.

Mahabubabad is much more close as UPA was ahead of TRS by just over 9,000 votes. The gap is far too short for UPA to retain its mild advantage. I therefore expect TRS to reverse the situation and win this constituency by a close margin.

TRS "won" the other 14 constituencies by a comfortable margin (including 7 cases of >50% popularity) and can be expected confidently to repeat the feat in the general elections. Three seats (Nalgonda, Peddapalle & Bhongir) falling slightly short of double digit vote advantage can be considered fair game for ambitious Congress candidates wishing to put up a "brave boy on the burning deck" show.

BJP can probably take solace by taking the second position at Hyderabad & retaining its deposit in Secunderabad (and hopefully even Adilabad) J

Overall assessment

After looking at various possible dimensions of the verdict, the broad situation may be summarized below:

·         TRS won big throughout the state excluding only Khammam district and Hyderabad Loksabha constituency. In this sphere of influence, TRS won across the spectrum taking a lion's share of votes irrespective of age, gender, occupation, economic status, caste or creed

·         When the going gets tough, the tough get going! UPA candidates who managed to overcome the odds did so due to specific reasons such as local factors or TRS unforced errors

·         To a comparatively limited extent, the above statements apply to Khammam district in an opposite manner i.e. with TRS & UPA roles swapped

·         Predictably Majlis did exceptionally well in their own sphere as a matter of sheer habit J