AP Elections 2024: YSR Congress Party Has The Upper Hand In ST Reserved Seats

Jan 23, 2023, 17:57 IST

The ruling YSR Congress Party continues to hold the upper hand in the seven ST reserved seats in Andhra Pradesh. If elections are held today, the YSR Congress would sail through in six seats and the TDP would win one constituency. This is the main outcome of the tracker poll conducted by Peoples Pulse, a Hyderabad-based political research organisation. The YSR Congress Party would get 44.25 percent of the vote while the TDP would get 39.39 percent vote share. The Jana Sena Party would get 8.19 percent of the vote. (Margin of error plus or minus 3 Percent)

The YSR Congress Party leads by 4.86 percent over the TDP. In the event the broad expectation now that there might be some understanding between the TDP and the Janasena becomes a reality, then the contests in all the seven reserved seats would be pretty keen.

The YSR Congress, presently, is comfortably poised in Rampachodavaram, Paderu, Araku, Salur, Palakonda, and Kurupam.

The TDP is firmly set in Polavaram.

According to the First Tracker Poll conducted by Peoples Pulse Research Organization YSRCP have a lead over its nearest rival Party TDP
6-8 percent vote share in Rampachodavaram, Paderu, Araku, Salur. In Palkonda difference of Vote share between YSRCP – TDP is 1.31 percent only.

According to First Tracker Poll, Jana Sena Party would get a Vote share of 13.97 percent in Rampachodavaram, 9.23 percent in Araku,
9.09 percent in Kurupam, 7.27 percent in Polavaram, 7.29 in Paderu, 5.18 in Salur, 5.3 percent in Palakonda. This indicates Janasena will play a key role in the 2024 Assembly Elections.

An interesting detail of this tracker poll is that the TDP is adding nearly 9.6 percent to its vote share of 2019 and yet winning only one of the seven ST seats, Polavaram, with a vote share difference of just 1.93 percent. On the other hand, the YSR Congress is losing nearly 4.94 percent of its vote share.

In 2014 when the TDP came to power after the bifurcation of the state, they won only one seat i.e, Polavaram. YSRCP won the remaining six seats reserved for Schedule Tribes. In 2009 in an integrated state, the TDP won only Araku, while the Congress won the remaining six. This goes on to show that the TDP, historically, has performed poorly in ST-reserved seats.
According to the CSDS - Lokniti study of 2019 elections, 86 percent of the Tribals supported YSRCP while only 14 percent supported the TDP.

Among the Tribal’s there is also rivalry among the sub-sects. The top communities in these seven S.T. reserved seats are Koya, Konda Reddy, Koya Dora, Konda Kammari, Konda Dora, Bhagatha, Valmiki, Konda Kummari, Kondu, Kotiah, Kodu, Jhathapu, Savara, Kapu, Setti Balija, Kamma, Mala, Madiga, Koppula Velama and Thoorpu Kapu.

According to the First Tracker Poll, SC-ST communities are supporting the YSR Congress, and the BC and forward communities are supporting the TDP. Around 16 percent of forward communities support Janasena. YSR Congress draws its support from 36-60 years age group and the TDP is strong in the 18-35 years age group. Around 14 percent of youth between 18-35 years support Jana Sena Party.

In all the seven segments there is a sense of disenchantment as the ITDA functioning is below par, there is also disillusionment with their respective MLA’s and they are worried about mining.

In ST constituencies teachers, government employees and nongovernmental organisations have considerable influence on the people. The tribals are of the opinion that the mainstream political parties have not done enough to improve their lot, though they acknowledge that the Communist parties have somehow contributed to their well-being.

CPI (M) Party had some presence in Polavaram, Rampachodavarm, Araku, Palakonda, CPI in Paderu Assembly Segments. That is the reason that CPI(M) and CPI have some presence in some pockets, while national parties like the BJP and the Congress are nowhere in the reckoning.

People Pulse Conducted the Tracker Poll from 16-21 January 2023. Five polling stations were selected from each Assembly segment using Systematic Random Sampling. In each Polling station, 20-25 randomly selected samples from the Electoral Rolls. A total of 700 samples were chosen such that the sample reflects the situation on the ground in terms of Caste, religion, and age. Gender was given equal representation. The Survey was conducted with face-to-face Interviews.

Peoples Pulse with this Tracker Poll our researchers conducted group discussions on various topics to gauge the people’s mood and how they are disposed towards the political parties. This is the First Tracker Poll. There will be three more tracker polls each being done with a gap of four months.