Telangana: High stakes Munugode poll result today, parties on edge

HYDERABAD: When the votes are counted for the Munugode by-election on Sunday, the result will hopefully answer some key questions. Is the BJP's aggression in Telangana and its hopes of expanding its presence in southern India on a firm footing? Will TRS be able to ward off anti-incumbency and re-establish its dominance on Telangana's political landscape?
The winner of this crucial electoral contest will claim to be the leading force ahead of the assembly poll next year while the losers will have to go back to the drawing board and recalibrate plans for the future.
Munugode has seen a rather gruelling campaign the past month with the three main players - TRS, BJP and Congress - pumping in all their resources in this small assembly constituency of 2.4 lakh voters. Allegations of bribing voters and attempts to poach MLAs have flown thick and fast.
TRS and BJP especially went for the jugular in a do-or-die effort. If TRS campaigned with at least 100 of its top leaders, BJP used some of its best national strategists, including a team that reported directly to Union home minister Amit Shah.
For chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, at stake is more than just one seat in the assembly.
The result is likely to decide the kind of push and direction he gives to his latest pet project — Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) — ahead of the 2024 elections.
In a first, chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao even campaigned in Munugode twice in the past two months, indicating that he was not leaving anything to chance.
TRS working president and urban development minister KT Rama Rao, too, wooed voters and promised to “adopt” the constituency if the party won.
Of the previous four byelections held since 2018, TRS has lost two — Dubbak and Huzurabad — to BJP. The pink party wants to prove there is no anti-incumbency in the state and that the people are with it and that its welfare schemes such as Rythu Bandhu have won it the electorate’s loyalty.
BJP, straining to extend its dominance beyond Karnataka in the south, deputed nearly 100 leaders, including the party’s state president and Karimnagar MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar, in-charge Tarun Chugh and Union minister G Kishan Reddy, to campaign for Komatireddy Raj Gopal Reddy.
In Congress, state unit chief Revanth Reddy, incharge Manickam Tagore and scores of leaders canvassed for party candidate Palvai Sravanthi.
If the grand old party does not do well in a seat it originally held, Revanth will be under increased pressure to justify his position as the Telangana Congress chief.