Even as the exit polls further confused the voters with wide variations in their projections and with independents likely to play a key role, the Congress party is already on the job to establish contact with the likely winners.
In fact, independents who are projected to win are mostly from the Congress rebels, who contested after being denied the ticket. The party is making all efforts to keep them in good humour and leaders close to them have already got in touch with them.
Despite the exit polls of national news channels showing either clear majority or an edge for the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), the Congress party is confident of winning 60 seats on its own. “Our feedback suggests that we will win 60 seats while our ally will get around 6 to 7 seats. The four independents likely to win are from our party. So we will comfortably form the government,” AICC incharge for Telangana R.C. Khuntia said.
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Local feedback
Party leaders say their performance was analysed with the local leadership in the constituencies and they are upbeat from the feedback they received. On the exit polls of some national channels, they say the surveyors failed to get the people’s pulse. “Telangana is unique and national channels have always failed to capture the mood of the southern states where the perception of voters is totally different from northern Indian states,” TPCC treasurer Gudur Narayan Reddy claimed.
The party that is not so outspoken about superstitious beliefs and horoscope says the stars of TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy are favourable to his success as a leader. “Unlike Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, we don’t make such beliefs public but if that is the factor Mr. Uttam’s stars now predict lot of success for him,” a senior leader claimed.
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Meanwhile, all the Congress candidates are likely to gather on December 9 for a final assessment of their chances before the results are out on December 11.
Spare EVMS
The Congress party has urged the election authorities to keep a watch on the spare voting machines as it expects mischief by the ruling party and ensure that they are not tampered with. The TPCC treasurer said that several spare EVMs that are brought to replace the malfunctioning in the original machines have to be sealed in the presence of the candidates and authorities.