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

BJP's Rajagopal Reddy has accused TRS of misusing police, power for wining the bypolls

The TRS has emerged victorious in the high-stake Munugode bypoll wresting the assembly seat from the Congress.

However, the ruling party's fierce competition was with BJP's candidate Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy, who had resigned as the Congress MLA in August, thus necessitating the bye-election held on Thursday.

TRS candidate and Munugodu MLA previously Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy, backed by the CPI and CPM, won by a margin of 10,309 votes over Komatireddy in the former Communist bastion.

Polling about 24,000 votes, the Congress party's Palvai Sravanthi Reddy was relegated to a distant third position, losing the deposit.

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The hotly contested election saw an unprecedented influence of money, liquor etc inducements with voters in many areas openly admitting to having received “cash to vote” from the main parties. In some instances, voters, talking to news channels, presented an account of the amount they received from each party. In one place, locals reportedly refused to vote “till they receive the promised money from contestants”.

The Sunday result came as a big setback for the saffron party after its impressive bypoll victories in Dubbaka and Huzurabad in 2020 and 2021 respectively, seizing TRS seats in central Telangana.

With Munugodu, the BJP had aspired to gain a foothold in the Nalgonda region in the southwest, where the party is considered weak in comparison to its presence and progress being made elsewhere in the state, including Hyderabad.

The bypoll win was crucial for the BJP to dislodge the Congress and cement its position as the strong alternative to the TRS in the 2023 assembly polls. Munugodu victory was expected to attract more disgruntled leaders from the TRS, Congress into its fold.

Three out of the five bypolls including Munugode held in Telangana since the 2018 polls are in Nalgonda and all three results favoured K Chandrasekhar Rao's party. In October 2019, TRS took the Congress-held Huzurnagar and in May 2021, the pink party retained Nagarjuna Sagar.

In both Huzurnagar and Nagarjuna Sagar, the main rivalry was between the TRS and the Congress and the BJP had lost deposits in both places.

The BJP leadership was banking on the strength of “Komatireddy brand-name”. Rajgopal, an industrialist-turned-politician, along with his elder brother Venkat Reddy, Congress's Bhuvanagiri Lok Sabha MP, has a good reputation in the district and has vast election experience.

After his defeat became apparent on Sunday, Rajgopal, a former Lok Sabha MP and Telangana MLC, accused the TRS of deploying money, muscle power, and misusing the state machinery, police in order to trounce him.

However, the votes under the BJP account going up from 12,725 in 2018 to 86,697 now in a constituency of 2.42 lakh votes, comes as a major boost for the party in Nalgonda.

The bypoll was preceded by a high decibel campaign delving into the Narendra Modi and KCR styles governance, various corruption charges including those about KCR's daughter Kalvakuntla Kavitha's alleged involvement in the Delhi liquor scam and the BJP's alleged attempts to topple the TRS government.

Political pundits and the public are keenly awaiting “KCR's next political move”, including the possibility of early elections.