By: Nishanth Dongari
In 2011, Mission Telangana has done a thorough investigation to expose the dangerous fraud done by one of India’s most reputed research organizations –
Centre for Study of Developing Societies (CSDS). The organization is headed by Professor Yogendra Yadav, a respected intellectual. CSDS then issued a
clarification and said it was an error of judgement to use the services of Pemmasani Narasimha Rao. It seems like CSDS again got many things wrong in it’s
recent survey in Andhra Pradesh, which seems completely farce and it’s basic arithmetic is not making any sense.
Major flaw in the survey is the projection of seats that every party will gain. They predicted that Congress will get 11-15 seats and YSRCP also may get 11-
15 seats. Further surprising is TDP’s fate, which has a chance of getting 6-10 seats and TRS obtaining 5-9 seats. At the same time, their survey observed
that Congress is loosing 7% of vote share, TDP loosing 8%, YSRCP fetching (gaining) 20% and TRS gaining 7%. Here lies the secret of this survey’s intentional
motive and direction.
TRS is not a state party and it is only contesting in Telangana region, so if they are gaining 7% of vote share with respect to overall AP then their actual
gain in Telangana would be around 16-18%. In 2004, TRS obtained 6.83% of votes (around 16% in Telangana), which fetched them 5 MP seats. If TRS fetches 13%
of votes (around 30% in Telangana), which should at least double their seats. In Andhra area, the contest will be majorly either two or three party based
one, however, in Telangana region, it will be a multi-cornered contest, where Congress, TDP, YSRCP, BJP and newly formed left-front are going to fight TRS.
Whichever political party crosses 30% of vote share will sweep Telangana across the North and South, except in few packets in Khammam and Hyderabad
districts.
TDP lost 6.73% votes in 2004, which reduced their tally from 29 to 5. So how come TDP is going to win 6-10 seats, if they are going to loose 8% of their vote
share from 25% in 2009 to 17% in 2013. Remember, in 2009 they won 2 seats from Telangana region because of their alliance with TRS.
Even a primary school student can confidently say that the basic arithmetic of the survey has a major flaw. YSRCP gained 20% (compared to 2009) and TRS
gained 7%, while Congress lost 7% and TDP lost 8%. Prajarajyam had 17% of vote share in 2009 elections and if we attribute 12% of it to the above deficit
(27% – 15%), where is the remaining 5% of votes going to? I don’t think either BJP or Left parties are going to increase their tally that much in AP. If they
do, then BJP and Left parties should be winning at least 3-4 seats, which is currently missing in the survey. otherwise this 5% has to be shared between TRS
and YSRCP in some proportionate manner.
If we take some random case of 3% going to YSRCP, 1% going to others and 1% going to TRS (1% in AP = 2.4% in Telangana), which will further increase the
fortunes of both YSRCP and TRS. If we go with a hypothetical assumption that CSDS has made a statistical error of decrease of vote share of Congress and TDP,
and then equally sharing this 5% deficit among these two parties will further dent the prospects of both Congress and TDP. If we add voting share of all
parties, Congress 29%, YSRCP, 20%, TDP 17% and TRS 13%, which will make the sum to 79% and where is the rest of 21% voting going towards? Is it counted as
undecided voters or CSDS made another mistake?
My intention is not to indicate that either YSRCP going to sweep in Andhra and TRS sweeping completely in Telangana, but the above survey is definitely has
some fundamental flaws. Only the question is whether it is intentional or accidental? The timing and false statistics of this survey is definitely to stall
Telangana state, by lifting the aspirations of Congress and TDP in Andhra Pradesh.