2009 Poll Prospects And Alignments

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<!--QuoteBegin-shyam+Jun 1 2008, 07:55 AM-->QUOTE(shyam @ Jun 1 2008, 07:55 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Well results are out.  TDP and Cong won 1 each and TRS won 2.  All 4 MP seats were vacated by the TRS by their resignation.  Out of 16 MLA seats, TDP won 5 in bypolls.

So bottom line, if Congress and TRS run seperately, TDP wins.  TRS is one reason TDP has to shift taking support from BJP to Commies. In Coastal and Rayalaseema districts, commies don't have presence in bloc.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Interesting TDP+Communists combined vote share has gone down compared to TDP+BJP from 2004. TDP needs to evaluate its strategy of winning and whether communists compensate BJP vote share. TRS and Congress split works for TDP advantage but it is limited to Telangana area.

For next elections, based on swings in 1999 and 2004 and this by elections, TDP has advantage of gaining back some of seats it won in 1999 but lost in 2004. My projection is:

TDP 17
Congress 14
BJP 2
TRS 2
CPI/CPIM 2
Toss up 5 (some in Congress favor)

In scenario where TDP+BJP combination contests, my projection is:

TDP - 20
BJP - 5
Congress - 14
TRS - 2
CPI/CPIM - 1

Coastal AP is still key for Congress winning that many seats as it had huge swing in 2004. If those districts are swinging back to TDP, TDP can expect even more seats.