Kavitha says move to ‘merge’ BRS with BJP. What do the numbers show?

If voting percentages of the past few elections are the criteria, an alignment with the BJP – which has been growing its footprint in Telangana – is beneficial for the BRS, as it would have helped the party stop the Congress.

Officially, the BRS has denied any talks with the BJP, with senior leader T Harish Rao asserting that the party will go it alone in the Assembly elections, due next in 2028, and return with 100 seats.

Kavitha’s claims about the party stand on the BJP came into the open first when a letter written by her to her father KCR on May 2, in the wake of the BRS’s Foundation Day meeting, “leaked”, in which she asked why he had spoken of the BJP only for “two minutes” and not forcefully enough.

At an interaction with the media last week, Kavitha was more forthright, claiming: “An offer was made to merge the BRS with the BJP when I was in prison (in the Delhi excise policy scam). I said a resounding ‘No’ to it at that time because the BRS is a regional party which should be alive to represent and safeguard the concerns of the Telangana people.”

Controversial BJP MLA from Goshamahal T Raja Singh fanned the speculation further, saying the BJP was “open to an alliance with the BRS if the terms were good”.

The numbers

In the 2023 Assembly polls, the BRS was voted out of power, winning 39 seats compared to the Congress’s 64 in the 119-member House. The BJP won 8 constituencies.

However, in terms of vote shares, the BRS with 37.35% was only marginally behind the Congress at 39.40%. The BJP got 13.90% of the votes, the third-highest share. Together, the BRS and BJP would on paper have got more than 50% of the votes.

Seat-wise voting data indicates an alliance could have yielded the BRS-BJP 17 more seats, bringing their tally to 59, just one short of the majority mark in the Assembly.

What changed in 2023 as compared to the previous Assembly polls in 2018 and 2014 was the impressive performance of the BJP. The BRS had swept the 2018 and 2014 elections (then known as the Telangana Rashtra Samithi or TRS), getting 88 seats and 47.4% of the votes, and 63 constituencies and 34.3% of the votes, respectively.

The BJP had barely figured in the 2018 polls, winning just 1 of the 118 seats it contested with a 6.9% vote share, though it had won 5 seats with a marginally better vote share of 7.03% in 2014.

The spread

The 17 Assembly seats that the BRS and BJP did not win but where their vote share together was more than Congress’s in 2023 are spread across the state – with four each in the northern and central parts, three in the region comprising Hyderabad and its surrounding areas, and one in south Telangana.

By then, the BJP had already sent note of its rise with its surprise performance in the Hyderabad civic polls, where it emerged as the second largest party with 48 seats, denying a clear majority to the then ruling BRS (56), and forcing it to rely on the AIMIM (44) to assume power in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation.

In the 2023 Assembly polls which followed the Hyderabad civic elections, of the 24 seats spread across the Hyderabad region, the BRS won 16 (of its total 39); the BJP got 1 (of its total of 8). The rest of the BJP MLAs came from north Telangana, with the party gaining at the expense of the BRS.

The BRS also slipped in rural Telangana, where it won only 19 of the 80 Assembly seats, a steep drop from 62 in 2018.

In the 2018 elections, of the six seats not won by either the BJP or BRS (TRS) but where their combined vote share was higher than the winning party, three fell in the Hyderabad region. One each were in the northern, southern and central parts.

In 2014, when Assembly elections were held for a united Andhra Pradesh, before the division between it and Telangana, the BJP contested 45 of the 119 OR 118 seats falling in the Telangana region. All its six wins came in the Hyderabad region.

2024 Lok Sabha polls

The BJP stunned the BRS in these elections, winning 8 seats (2 of these in North Telangana). This matched the Congress’s tally, with the AIMIM winning the remaining 1 constituency, and the BRS ending with none.

At 35.08%, the BJP vote share was more than double the BRS’s 16.68%. The Congress stood at 40.10% – with a BRS-BJP alliance clearly outweighing the party.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BRS (then TRS) had won 9 seats with 41.7% of the votes and the BJP 4 with 19.7%. The Congress, in comparison to their total, was far behind at 3 seats and 29.8% of the votes.

Pointing to the BJP’s rise in Telangana, a party leader said “no alliance or merger talks” were on with the BRS. “Why would we need to ally with the party, especially when their supporters are now backing us? What do we gain? The BJP, as a party, is self-sufficient to spread its wings in Telangana. The election results are for everyone to see. From a party with a single seat in 2018, we have grown leaps and bounds,” the BJP leader from Nizamabad in northern Telangana said.

BRS leaders too said the party had no reason for any backroom negotiations with the BJP. “We have opposed the BJP and its policies tooth and nail. Our workers will not appreciate any alliance with them, while a merger is out of the question. It is a well-known fact that the BRS is on a stronger footing than the BJP in Telangana. We may not be in power now, but no one in the party will trigger an existential crisis with an alliance or merger,” a BRS leader from Kamareddy said.