If you look at the overall polling percentages, YSR Congress got 51%, Telugudesam carved 39% and Janasena got a mere 6.5% of votes. Though one might argue that even TDP and Janasena clubbed together, it can’t beat YSRC, this is not the math one should look at.
In many places, including Bhimavaram where Pawan Kalyan lost the mandate to YSRC candidate with a margin of 2700+ votes, the very first thought is that, support from TDP would have done miracles. While Grandhi Srinivas (YSRC) got 55700+ votes, Pawan fetched 53,000 votes and TDP’s Pulavarthi Ramanjaneyulu got 44,323 votes polled. Now imagine, if TDP and Pawan came up as a combine, even if one of them’s vote is split into two, definitely their combine would have won.
In other words, has Telugudesam party and Pawan Kalyan joined hands, then the result would have been different altogether. Neither Pawan Kalyan has seen to that, nor the veteran Chandrababu Naidu saw that coming. Telugudesam men have earlier made a mockery of Pawan over the Janasenani’s comments that TDP won in 2014 due to him. Now, TDP has lost due to him as many believed that there is a secret pact between them.
Had they made the pact openly, surely they would have won, is what analysts feel.