Jamili Elections Sends Jitters To KCR

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s proposal to pass the ‘One Nation-One election’ bill in the upcoming special session of the Parliament this month is sending jitters down the spine of BRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao. The BRS declared its list of candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections with an intention to gain an edge over the Congress and BJP. However, the Centre began mooting the idea of holding the Assembly and general election simultaneously (Jamili elections) and if this really comes into implementation, KCR is of the opinion that it would have an adverse effect on their party.

Let us see how the voting pattern would get affected if both the elections are held together.

If Assembly elections are held, only local issues would come into focus while national issues would be considered during the generla elections.

If both the elections are held simultaneously, KCR fears that predicting the voting pattern is highly impossible.

During the last Assembly elections, the BRS won 88 seats by gaining 47% vote share but in the Parliament elections, the BRS vote share dropped to 41%, which means within a very short period, the people’s preference to the BRS dropped by 6%.

Coming to the BJP, the BJP won one MLA seat with 7% vote share but during the Parliament elections, it won 4 Lok Sabha seats with 20% vote share. Similarly, the Congress also gained more vote share when the Assembly and Parliamentary elections are compared.

Now, KCR is worried what would happen to the BRS’ fortune if both the elections come together in the wake of the huge drop in the vote share when both the elections were held six months apart.

If both the elections come together, the party leaders need to touch both local and national issues simultaneously during electioneering and there is no certainty over how the voters would respond to that type of campaigning.

Moreover, the Jamili elections would completely be held under the Centre’s supervision and the entire election machinery would abide by the guidelines set by the Union government, which KCR feels is another disadvantage for him.

The electorate is anxiously waiting to see how things would take shape in the next few days.