Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao got the assembly elections held ahead of time, as he did not wish to have his message drown in the Congress-BJP pitch of the national elections. But the short electoral history of the baby state shows the Chief Minister, who led the statehood movement since 2001, enjoy remarkable popularity.
Statehood for Telangana was approved in February 2014, months before the national elections were held. But the severance did not take place till June, by which time the new government was sworn in. So technically, this is the first Lok Sabha election in the state.
In the assembly elections held in December, Mr Rao's Telangana Rashtra Samithi or TRS won 88 of the 119 assembly seats. These 88 seats covered an area that would guarantee it 15 Lok Sabha seats.
In comparison, the Congress has won 21 assembly seats, which would add up to one Lok Sabha seat.
The TRS also won a huge victory in the recent panchayat elections in the state.
In the assembly elections, the TRS had cornered a mammoth 47 per cent of the votes.
In most of the states, election data shows that assembly polls are bellwether for the national elections.
The party that wins in the assembly elections have won the most Lok Sabha seats in 93 per cent of the states. Data also shows that in the Lok Sabha polls, that the winner usually gets 25 per cent more seats.
The rise of regional parties has been observed in the national elections since 1952 and they have increasingly made their presence felt.
This has been coupled with a corresponding drop in the popularity of the non-Congress, non-BJP national parties.
Data also shows that Chief Minister Rao, fondly called KCR by supporters, and his party TRS, looms large in the voters' decision-making process. This is also one area in which Congress chief Rahul Gandhi ranks higher than Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Telangana has four bellwether seats. One of them, Peddapalle, has managed to predict the Lok Sabha winner correctly as many as 11 times.
Telangana votes in a single phase on April 11. The results of the national elections will be declared on May 23.
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