Several studies in the past show that the work done by the incumbent government helps the ruling party to get re-elected. However, most of these studies focus on re-election and do not look at the impact assessment of governance on trust in government, which is a precursor of re-election. To fill this gap, this article explores whether perceptions of good governance lead to trust in government. The results support the view that governance at the state level leads to a higher trust with the state government. Of all the variables used to measure governance as access, benefitting from welfare schemes had the maximum impact on trust. Other governance measures like availing public services and citizens’ interaction with the state too had a positive relationship with trust in the state government. Furthermore, having the same government at the centre and the state, strengthened one’s trust in the state government.

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the passage of Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act, 2014 in the Parliament by the Congress-led (United Progressive Alliance-II [UPA-II]) government, the election that was held in the month of April 2014 became the last one in integrated Andhra Pradesh. At 74.6 per cent, the voter turnout was two points higher than the previous election (Table 1). The state of Telangana formally came into existence on 2 June 2014. Across undivided Andhra, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and its ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 126 seats and saw around 6 percentage increase in its vote share from 2009 elections. Youth, Labour and Farmer Congress Party (YSRCP) won 70 seats with a vote share of 27.8 per cent. Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) contested in 119 seats and was victorious in 63 (Table 2). The party also saw a 10 percentage increase in its vote share from previous elections. Congress ended up as the biggest loser in these elections. It saw a decline of 135 seats and around 25 per cent in its vote share from previous elections. The TRS and TDP stormed to power in Telangana and Seemandhra, respectively (see Tables 3 and 4 for results). The TRS was comfortably ahead in most of the districts of Telangana except Rangareddi, Hyderabad and Khammam. The TDP-led alliance's best performance came from Rangareddi and Hyderabad districts (Table 5). Variation from this trend could be seen in Seemandhra and districts falling under it. The TDP-led alliance was ahead in 8 districts out of the total 13 (Table 6). The TDP-led alliance was the leading party in coastal region of Andhra winning 83 seats. On the other hand, in Rayalaseema, YSRCP was victorious in 33 out of the total 56 seats. The remaining 23 went to TDP-led alliance (Table 7). Congress's decision to divide the Telugu-speaking state turned public sentiments against the party in both Rayalaseema and coastal Andhra regions from where it could not win a single seat. The electoral wave was in favour of the TRS in all types of constituencies in Telangana-be they reserved for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) and general constituencies but its best performance was in SC reserved constituencies (Table 8). In Seemandhra, YSRCP was the biggest recipient of both votes and seats in constituencies reserved for STs. The TDP-led alliance won 89 out of the total 139 seats in general constituencies and 48 went to YSRCP (Table 9). The TRS enjoyed support in both rural and urban Telangana, though the support was higher in rural and semi-urban constituencies (Table 10). The performance of TDP-BJP alliance and YSRCP in Seemandhra across both rural and urban localities was impressive but TDP alliance led everywhere (Table 11). An analysis of the results by the proportion of Muslim population in Telangana reveals that the worst performance of TRS was in high Muslim-concentrated seats (30 per cent and above). In Seemandhra, YSRCP performed better in high Muslim-concentrated constituencies and TDP alliance in low Muslimconcentrated constituencies (Tables 12 and 13).

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Tariq Thachil, Elite Parties, Poor Voters: How Social Services Win Votes in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Studies in Comparative Politics Series). 2016. 331 pages. ₹795.