Corruption least in Telangana, finds CSDS survey

31.4% of voters believe that corruption had decreased in Telangana, according to CSDS survey

Hyderabad: Corruption is the least in Telangana in comparison with several other States, with just 23 percent of voters here believing that corruption had increased in the State, according to a survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) Lokniti Programme for Comparative Democracy.

The survey, which tried to find out whether corruption was a key electoral issue, found that corruption does make voters unhappy and angry with political parties, but during elections, voting decisions were not primarily guided by this opinion. In 12 of 13 recent State assembly elections, more voters believed that corruption had increased since the previous polls compared with those who held the opposite view.

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In six of these 12 states, the ruling party or alliance got re-elected, and in the other six, it got voted out of power. Telangana was the only State where more voters (31.4 percent) believed that corruption had decreased. Not surprisingly, the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (then Telangana Rashtra Samithi) got re-elected in 2018. The survey covered 13 State polls held in recent years for which such data collected by the Lokniti-CSDS team.

The survey, which has been a continuous process before and after elections in various States over the last four years, has not registered a similar or more impressive opinion in any other State.

Among the States, Punjab led the chart with 69 percent believing that corruption increased in the State, while in Madhya Pradesh, it was 67 percent, Goa 59 percent, Karnataka 58 percent, Rajasthan 57 percent and Gujarat 53 percent.

However, according to an analysis, despite the considerable increase in corruption and people voting in favour of the opposition parties in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, BJP governments managed to retain power in the two States. Similarly, in Gujarat and Karnataka, in spite of people’s observations over rampant corruption in the government, BJP managed to get into the saddle.

The survey in Telangana also found that 51.7 percent believed that road conditions in the State had improved, while 84.7 percent believed that electricity supply improved.

More than 60 percent said drinking water supply improved. It also found that awareness on key government schemes was very high in Telangana, with 94.9 percent of respondents having heard of Rythu Bandhu, Kalyana Lakshmi/Shaadi Mubarak (95.8 percent); Amma Vodi and KCR Kit (93.2 percent), 2BHK scheme (93.8) percent and Arogyasri (96.6 percent), indicating that these also played a crucial role the second consecutive victory of the K Chandrashekhar Rao-led government.