Disaster for Congress in Andhra: Survey

Come 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress in Andhra Pradesh could end up with a meager two to five MPs (down from its current 31 MPs) as per the findings of a pre- poll survey. This spells bad news for the party that gets the maximum number of its MPs from AP. Given the present popular sentiment in the state after the Congress’ decision to go ahead with a separate state of Telengana, the findings of the Nielsen survey seem to confirm the voter dissatisfaction with the Congress party.

As per the Nielsen survey while the Congress would bag only five seats the BJP led by its Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi could surprisingly come a cropper netting no seats. At present the BJP does not a have single MP from out of the 42 parliamentary constituencies in the state.

The survey is based on 1,78,085 interviews conducted in the state between July and September 2013.

While the Congress could end up being the biggest loser, the survey spells good news for the YSR Congress led by Jagan Mohan Reddy, which could bag 23-25 seats.

The Telangana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS) too could improve its tally from the present two to ten seats by 2014.

The Congress camp has been worried post its decision to bifurcate the state and carve out Telengana but despite deep divisions within the party to go ahead with it, the high command had persisted on the reasoning that the party would still end up with goodwill in the Telengana region and bring in the votes.

Obviously, as per the findings of this survey and several earlier ones, the Congress prospects are bleak in the state in the upcoming Parliamentary elections.