Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Understanding the keenly watched three-cornered battle for 17 seats of Telangana in Phase 4

All seventeen parliamentary seats of Telangana will go to polls in the fourth phase of Lok Sabha Elections on May 13.

In 2019, the (BRS) had won 9 of the 17 seats. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won four seats, Congress 3 and ’s AIMIM won the lone Hyderabad seat.

The contest on May 13 will be keenly watched for multiple reasons. One, a resurgent Congress, would want to repeat its victory. The Congress bagged 64 out of 119 assembly seats in Telangana, ending the 10-year rule of the -led BRS. Two, the BRS, on its part, is fighting a survival battle after repeated setbacks post-2023 assembly election defeat.

Third, Telangana is key for the BJP for its Mission South and the 400-seat target for the (NDA) in the Lok Sabha Elections 2024. While Telangana is the only state in the south, apart from Karnataka, where the BJP won seats in 2019, the saffron party also marked an increase in its vote share to about 14 per cent.

The is banking on the six guarantees it promised in the run-up to assembly elections last year. Four of these guarantees have been fulfilled. The party has also inducted leaders from other parties to increase its tally from three seats in 2019. Chief Minister , who leads the Congress campaign, has vowed to take the party tally to two digits.

Former chief minister and BRS chief KCR has campaigned on a bus across the 17 seats in the state. KCR was barred from campaigning for two days by the for using offensive language.

The BJP depends on Prime Minister , who extensively campaigned in Telangana. In fact, the PM is addressing rallies in Telangana on May 10, a day before the last day of campaigning for the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections. Already, the PM and Home Minister Amit Shah have addressed more than