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