Why does Chandrababu Naidu keep on attacking Narendra Modi?

BJP supporters are confounded, why does CBN and the whole ‘yellow’ press keep on attacking Narendra Modi? It is beyond comprehension!

Let us start with caste wise vote share in the 2014 election (Lok Niti CSDS)

Kapu – TDP+ 49, YSRCP – 40

OBC – TDP – 54, YSRCP – 37

SC – TDP – 28, YSRCP – 57

Muslims (Low sample) – TDP -33, YSRCP -66

Christians, TDP – 27, YSRCP – 69

It is clear that all voting blocks have swung one way or the other except Kapus who seemed to have evenly split both sides. This is one place where Pawan Kalyan is hurting the TDP much more than the YSRCP

Now, look at this chart (Google Trends)

 

As we can see above Starting 2017 Jana Sena party slowly started picking momentum catching up with TDP by early 2018. This is also when YSCRP padayatra was on and he was hurting TDP on special status. A combination of Jana Sena and YSCRP hurt TDP significantly. Let us explore Jana sena a bit.

Jana Sena has an unusual combination of supporters

  • Youth

  • Kapu Community

  • Others who like Pawan Kalyan

So at one level, Pawan Kalyan was picking some of the anti-incumbency vote while at the other end he was picking his Kapu Community vote (many of who voted for his brother in 2009).

Both TDP and YSRCP were affected but TDP was affected more

  1. While YSRCP lost some of the anti-incumbency vote to Jana Sena (Like Youth), it gained the dalit, OBC and upper caste anti-incumbency vote

  2. TDP not only lost youth and Kapu vote, it also lost dalit and obc anti-incumbency vote and nothing was coming towards it

As a consequence of the two sets of losses, anti-incumbency and caste (kapus primarily), the TDP was bleeding left right and centre. Look at the latest CrowdWisdom Andhra Pradesh Vote and Seat Share Predictions here

TDP – 36%

YSRCP – 45%

Jana Sena – 12%

Now, purely from a Governance angle, there wasn’t much that can be done beyond communication. Why?

Read this – Andhra Pradesh Under CBN Topped Most Sectors 

So while reaching out to the voters and communicating to them was one side of the story, Naidu had to quickly replace the Jana Sena Party leak. Where will it come from?

The Muslim Voter

Andhra has only 9% muslims and within this group Jagan had 66% share. However, the following districts have significant number of Muslim Voters.

Kadapa (YSRCP won 6 Seats below 10% margin) – Muslim Pop – 16%

Kurnool (YSRCP won 7 seats below 10% margin) – Muslim Pop – 17%

Anantapur (YSCRP won 2 seats below 10% margin) – Muslim Pop – 11%

Chittoor (YSRCP won 6 seats below 10% margin) – Muslim Pop – 10%

Guntur (YSRCP won 5 seats below 10% margin) – Muslim Pop – 11%

Let us assume that the results were to be swapped, TDP wins 66% of the Muslim vote and Jagan 33%.

Kadapa – Swing of 10.5% in favour of TDP

Kurnool – Swing of 11%

Anantapur, Chittoor, Guntur – Swing of 7%

So of the 26 seats won narrowly by YSRCP, TDP could perhaps win about 10-15 and if lucky more.

What is the Crowdwisdom Seat prediction for Andhra?

YSRCP -98

TDP – 62

JS – 11

A swing of 10-15 seats will take TDP to about 75 and with Jana Sena at 11 giving TDP a fighting chance to win 2019.

There are numerous other reasons why CBN dumped BJP including attacks by Jagan on Special status, blaming BJP for anti-incumbency and so on. However, given the thin vote that BJP brings to the table and given the significant minority dissatisfaction with BJP, the muslim (and a little of the christian vote) is a critical reason for Chandrababu Naidu to dump the BJP. It was clear from the very beginning that BJP was open to dumping TDP if YSRCP does well in 2019 and BJP was short of majority. In case of CBN it was about making the best out of a bad situation. But his attacks on Modi will continue, all the way until election day.

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