Regardless of the outcome, Huzurabad bye-election will go down in the poll history for the number of surveys done. If unofficial sources are to be believed, over 100 surveys were commissioned on the outcome of Huzurabad assembly constituency by-election. The number of surveys was so high that the voters of the constituency are total fed up.
The situation is such that even after two days of the polling, survey agencies were scouring through the countryside and were seen collecting voters’ responses. In some places, the survey teams were shooed away by the locals, who termed them as nuisance.
Intel sources reveal that most of the surveys were commissioned by politicians who want to take a decision about their political career in the 2024 elections. Many industrialists and entrepreneurs with political ambitions have tried to gauge the public mood and then take a decision on which party to join. These surveys have never been publicized and were used for the personal consumption of the leader in question. Several persons got the surveys done to identify the winner and hedge their bets on him. In fact, Huzurabad bypoll has seen the highest betting in recent times.
Both the ruling TRS and the opposition BJP have also commissioned several surveys to understand the public mood. According to a senior politician, as many as 35 surveys were commissioned by both the parties. These surveys were commissioned at various stages of the electioneering to get a feel of the voters’ intentions. Thus, Huzurabad is a trend-setter on the issue of commissioning election surveys.
