Lok Sabha Election Opinion Poll: Telangana gears up for a 3-way fight — Congress vs Modi vs KCR

Despite the seat projection, the News18 poll found that 69% are "somewhat to very satisfied" so far with the performance of CM Reddy. However, a huge 87% approve of the work done by the NDA government at the Centre and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

So, in this Lok Sabha election, Reddy's Congress will be fighting battles on two fronts — against a vengeful BRS, and a BJP that has slowly made inroads in the state since 2014.

In the 2014 Assembly elections, BJP won five seats in the 199-member House and lost four of those seats in the 2018 polls. However, at the parliamentary level, BJP won a lone seat in 2014 and improved it to four in 2019.

The biggest indicator of BJP's growing popularity is the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, the governing body of the state capital. BJP, which won only four seats in the 150-seat GHMC, gave the erstwhile TRS a run for its money and improved its tally by 44 seats in 2020. It could have helped that BJP rolled out its big guns, such as Home Minister Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, as star campaigners, but there's no doubting that BJP's star is on the rise, at least in Hyderabad.

However, the state capital accounts for only two Lok Sabha seats — Hyderabad and Secunderabad. Hyderabad has for decades been a bastion of the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) led by sitting MP Asaduddin Owaisi, and it is nearly impossible to unseat him. Secunderabad is the more interesting seat, with the winner almost always being from the ruling party at the Centre. The incumbent, Union Minister G. Kishan Reddy,  is a proven legislator and first-time MP, and for the moment, seems all set for a second term in the Lok Sabha.

That leaves 15 seats in the mix, of which BRS holds nine, BJP three, and Congress three. While the News18 poll points one way, tt's hard to tell which way the needle will swing on this front, with 66% of the respondents saying they are satisfied with the performance of their sitting MPs.

Employment remains on the top of voters' minds, with 66% saying it will be a key issue for them, followed by law and order (42%), infrastructure and development (36%). Corruption (24%) remains relatively low on the voters' minds, but interestingly, 20% said they will be voting on religious lines.

Meanwhile, 64% of those polled said their economic status has improved in the past five years, while 65% hold out hope that it would improve in the next five. About 62% of respondents are optimistic about their and their families' future in the next five years.

Given the honeymoon period being enjoyed by the ruling Congress in the state, and the overwhelming support for PM Modi and his government, it would be all too easy to say the biggest battle will be between the two old rivals. But K. Chandrasekhar Rao is a canny politician and it would be a grave mistake to rule him out — just after one electoral defeat.