Left votes which helped Komatireddy in 2018, defeat him in Munugodu bypoll now

Victor TRS and defeated BJP have both acknowledged the winning contribution of Communist votes in the Munugode bypoll in Telangana, results of which came out on Sunday.

TRS candidate Koosukuntla Prabhakar Reddy received 97,006 votes (42.95 per cent of total 2.258 lakh votes polled), BJP candidate Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy received 86,697 (38.38 per cent), while Congress candidate Palvai Sravanthi got only 23,906 votes, thus forfeiting her deposit. (As per the party positions on ECI website at 10 pm)

TRS winning margin of 10,309 votes corresponds with the Left influence votes of around 15,000 in the Assembly constituency.

In a press conference at the TRS headquarters in Hyderabad after the counting ended, working president KT Rama Rao thanked the “Comrades,” naming several of them like CPI Telangana secretary Kunamneni Sambasiva Rao.

Also read | TRS breaks Telangana bypoll tie, wins Munugode, 'semi-final before 2023 polls'

KTR who was actively involved in Munugode electioneering said the “bypoll was forced on the public by BJP leaders Amit Shah, Narendra Modi,” (by making Komatireddy resign as Congress MLA). “The Munugode verdict today is like a slap on their face,” KTR said.

Meanwhile, Komatireddy and other key Telangana BJP leaders like Eatala Rajender too acknowledged the damage done by the Left vote.

“(Apart from the deployment of 100 TRS MLAs, abuse of power, state police by the TRS government, threats, inducements given to voters), the 10-15 thousand Communist votes here have benefited the TRS,” Komatireddy said at the Munugode bypoll counting centre.

Except in 2014, when the new Telangana state was formed and Koosukuntla won, Munugode was always with either the Congress or the CPI. The CPI had last won from here in 2009.

In the 2014 polls, when the CPI and CPM had last contested, the votes polled by their candidates was over 30,000 votes. In one of the last Communist bastions in the state, Left votes are still very crucial in deciding the winner.

In 2018, Komatireddy, then a Congress candidate, had won with the support of CPI and CPM. Now in 2022, TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao took the Left's help and the Communist influence proved beneficial for the allying candidate again.

Kunamneni said the Left parties decided to go with TRS “with the larger interest of opposing the BJP.”