Andhra Pradesh voters a decisive factor in Telangana polls

Hyderabad: Voters from the coastal and Rayalaseema regions of Andhra Pradesh who live in Telangana may prove to be a decisive factor in the state assembly polls scheduled for December 7.

With an estimated population of 4 million, Andhra voters account for about 15% of the 27.3 million voters in Telangana, concentrated mainly in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation region and pockets of command areas of the Godavari and Krishna rivers.

Comparatively, Muslims account for 12.5% of Telangana’s population and are a key factor in 42 of the state’s 119 assembly segments.

Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party, which joined the Congress-led People’s Front, is contesting from 13 assembly segments, which have a sizeable chunk of migrant voters from his state. Naidu’s rallies and public meetings are largely concentrated in constituencies with a large population of migrant voters, where the TDP won in the 2014 polls.

Seeking a favourable outcome, the Andhra government has declared a holiday on December 7 to enable its employees living in Andhra with their families to come to vote in Telangana, where they had been registered before bifurcation.

According to political analysts, Andhra voters can emerge as the deciding factor in 50 to 55 assembly constituencies, although they are unlikely to vote en-masse for one party.

The analysts pointed out that the voting pattern of the migrant population will be distinct from the 2014 polls, when the TDP won 15 of the 119 seats and also from the Greater Hyderabad municipal elections in 2016, when the Telangana Rashtra Samithi secured 100 of the 150 seats, with the TDP confined to only one seat.

“The mood has turned different this time around and insecurity began seeping in among the migrant population once again,” said Katragadda Prasuna, former legislator and Convenor of the Andhra Settlers’ Forum.

“The ruling TRS supremo and caretaker chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao is once again targeting the Andhra migrants in a bid to arouse emotions among the native Telangana people. This could end up in consolidation of migrant votes in favour of aparticular party.”

According to her, the migrant population was estimated at about 6 million in Telangana and could influence the fate of candidates in at least 34 assembly constituencies where their population exceeds 40,000. According to the Telangana government, the migrant population from Andhra was 3.7 million in 2014, but those numbers could be “gross underestimates because of non-reporting by migrants.”

Political analyst Telakapalli Ravi said inflammatory statements and the aggressive rhetoric of the chief minister against the Andhra people and Naidu was primarily aimed at arousing the sentiment of Telangana self-respect and may influence voting among the migrant population.

“The ruling TRS top brass, especially the father-son (K Chandrashekar Rao-KT Rama Rao) duo, appears to have adopted a typical dual strategy wherein the father instigates the self-respect sentiment among the native Telangana voters and the son immediately resorts to appeasing the migrant voters and assures their safety and security in Telangana,” he said.