Anger against BRS dictates voters’ choice

The die is cast. Voters of Telangana have made their choice. Only the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) know the results. It will be one more day before they reveal their secrets and the exact numbers are out. Meanwhile, pollsters have come out with exit polls to pander to our curiosity. Journalists, politicians, party leaders and cadres of various parties who experienced the electioneering firsthand weighed in. Although their predictions and claims are all over the place, the consensus is that the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has lost considerable support and is most likely on the way out.
Taraka Rama Rao, son of the Chief Minister, addressed the media after the polling deadline. Aiming to reassure his cadre, he claimed the BRS would win seventy or more seats. Contrast that with the 104 MLAs BRS had in the Assembly after the last by-poll in Munugode.
As per the gist of exit polls, voters were clear on rejecting BRS but unsure who should replace them. None of the exit polls indicated a clear wave in favour of one single party. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress have made considerable gains in their vote shares. The possibility of a hung verdict is all too real.
The exit polls may be wrong. We will only know that after opening the EVMs. But a couple of conclusions are clear for those who worked directly on the ground and interacted with voters. Firstly, there is a lot of anger against Chief Minister Chandrasekhar Rao and his party, the BRS. Consequently, they voted for the candidate they believed would more likely defeat the BRS candidate in their seat.
Secondly, the Congress benefitted more from this anger for no other reason than familiarity. The voter had seen the Congress in power many times and more of its candidates as MLAs earlier. The vote share gains of the BJP indicate the dilemma the voters faced. The voters had to decide between defeating BRS and supporting real change, which they believed the BJP could bring in.
The reasons for the voters’ anger are apparent. Firstly, the voters felt Chandrasekhar Rao and his party cheated them by using the Telangana sentiment to enrich themselves and not to improve the voters’ lives. Average voters who neither read the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) reports nor care for economic surveys and statistics could see how KCR’s family members’ and BRS MLA’s wealth has multiplied since Telangana’s formation. On the other hand, they have seen their situation worsening, instead of improving on basic amenities, housing, education, health, and many more fronts.
Secondly, the voters were frustrated with Chandrasekhar Rao’s ‘maximum politics, minimum governance’ administration model. The sense that the Chief Minister stays aloof, inaccessible to the common public, and reaches out only during elections to make promises he never keeps is pervasive. The angst created among the youth due to TSPSC paper leaks and among farmers and landowners by the blunders in the Dharani portal are just two examples. The indifference to their plight and the lack of sensitivity with which the BRS government handled such issues infuriates them no end.
The third cause of the voters’ anger is the unabashed propaganda that the BRS party and its leaders engage in, day in and day out. The in-your-face full-page advertisements by the BRS party claiming to have achieved ‘Bangaru Telangana’ only added salt to the voters’ wounds. Take, for example, the claims of Taraka Rama Rao. He claims the IT industry in the state, centred entirely in Hyderabad, has created 36 lakh job opportunities – nine lakhs directly and 27 lakhs indirectly. The claim flies in the face of state’s reports that say there are only 34 lakh full-time and part-time workers in Hyderabad, Medchal-Malkajgiri, and Ranga Reddy districts combined.
Fourthly, there is a feeling that the Chief Minister and his family have become arrogant and autocratic. They have seen the zeal with which the entire government moves when a member of KCR’s family or even their pet dog is in trouble. In contrast, they have seen the same establishment deny them their fundamental right to protest to highlight their problems.
While the voters felt a need to teach the BRS and its leaders a lesson, they held reservations about the Congress party, and rightfully so. In the last two terms, they saw many Congress MLAs joining the BRS once elected. They are also aware of the Congress’s neglect of Telangana, which necessitated the Telangana agitation in the first place.
Voters know that the Congress is trying to fool them with impossible promises, just like the BRS. The rise in the BJP’s vote share indicates a growing acknowledgement among the voters of the need for the ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ model that the BJP stands for. Yet, voters’ familiarity with the Congress and the desire to overthrow the BRS at any cost seem to benefit the Congress more.