People of Munugode upheld Telangana's self-respect: K T Rama Rao

The people of Munugode have upheld Telangana's self-respect and gave the mandate for development, said Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) Working President K T Rama Rao after his party's victory in the Assembly by-election.

He said people of Munugode have given befitting reply to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who out of their "arrogance" imposed a by-election.

Rama Rao was addressing a news conference after the TRS won the bitterly contested by-election, defeating BJP by a margin of over 10,000 votes.

Also Read: TRS breaks Telangana bypoll tie, wins Munugodu, 'semi-final before 2023 polls'

The TRS leader said though Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy was the face of BJP, it was Amit Shah and Narendra Modi who were running the show from behind.

KTR, as Rama Rao is popularly known, said that despite the BJP using money power, misusing authority and all their allurements and conspiracies, people stood by the TRS and voted for the self-respect of Telangana.

He said the BJP's conspiracies reduced the majority of TRS but it could not stop the party from registering a victory. He pointed out that despite all the conspiracies and allurements by BJP, the TRS increased its vote share to about 43 per cent from 34.29 per cent in 2018.

KTR said the TRS would have got a higher majority because of the situation in the constituency but the BJP leadership spent hundreds of crores and distributed liquor to lure voters.

Citing media reports, he said the husband of a BJP corporator and a close aide of state BJP President Bandi Sanjay was arrested with Rs 1 crore while BJP MLA Eatala Rajender's personal assistant K. Srinivas was caught with Rs 90 lakh.

He alleged that BJP leader G. Vivek brought Rs 2.5 crore through hawala from Gujarat. He claimed that soon after Rajagopal Reddy joined the BJP, Vivek transferred Rs 75 crore to his account. He said earlier when Rajender had joined the BJP, Vivek had transferred Rs 25 crore to the account of his family company Jamuna Hatcheries.

KTR also alleged though the TRS complained to the Election Commission with proof that Rajagopal Reddy's company Sushi Infra transferred Rs 5.25 crore to BJP leaders to lure voters, pressure was brought on EC not to take any action.

He alleged that the BJP misused its authority and deployed as many as 15 companies of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in the constituency.

He said 40 teams of the Income Tax with each team comprising 10 officials were sent to the constituency to conduct raids by making false allegations that the TRS is distributing money.

KTR said in the last eight years there were many by-elections in the state but it was only Huzurabad and Munugode that hundreds of crores were used in an assault on the democracy. He said in both the by-elections, the BJP candidates were rich and big contractors.