As Andhra Pradesh is getting ready for the counting of votes in the elections to 71 municipalities and 12 municipal corporations on Sunday, people are eagerly waiting for the outcome.
It is quite obvious that the YSR Congress party, being a ruling party, will definitely have an edge in the municipal elections.
Secondly, the Jagan Mohan Reddy government in the state is not even two years old; and so, the anti-incumbency will not be so strong that the people will reject the YSRC outright.
At the same time, it is generally expected that the opposition Telugu Desam Party will improve its performance at least to some extent, since there is a belief that TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu still has some positive vote among the people in the urban areas and it would have gone up in the last two years.
However, exit poll surveys conducted by various poll agencies are learnt to have projected a pathetic picture for the TDP.
Though no agency has brought out the outcome of any exit poll in the municipal elections, sources said majority of them predicted that the TDP is going to put up the worst-ever show in the municipal elections.
Shaik Mastan, a psephologist belonging to Aaraa, an election survey agency, has predicted that the outcome of the municipal elections in Andhra Pradesh is going to unprecedented, never witnessed in the history of the state, combined or residuary.
He went on to say that perhaps, no main opposition party in either of the two Telugu states would ever put up such a miserable performance in any elections till date. Mastan, however, did not mention any figures in his tweet.
It is expected that the YSRC is going to bag not less than 65 out of 71 municipalities and nagar panchayats that went to polls, besides winning all the 12 municipal corporations in the state.
The TDP is nowhere in the vicinity of the YSRC, except in Visakhapatnam where it is believed to have given some tough fight.
Let us wait and see, what is in store for the TDP!