Telangana’s self-respect wins, TRS trounces BJP in Munugode
Hyderabad: Stamping its mark all over one of the most keenly watched and fought by-elections of recent times, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (now Bharat Rashtra Samithi) on Sunday won the Munugode Assembly constituency by-poll by a margin of 10,309 votes, in the process wresting back the seat it had lost to the Congress in 2018.
The by-poll, dubbed by the TRS (BRS) as a battle between the self-respect of the people of Munugode and the money power of the BJP, saw TRS candidate Koosukuntla Prabhakar Reddy winning 96,598 of the total 2,25,192 votes polled through EVMs. His total vote count went up to 97,006 including the postal ballot and electronically transmitted postal ballot system (ETPBS) votes.
The Congress, which has a rich history of six victories in the constituency, was relegated to the third position, with Palvai Sravanthi, daughter of five-time Munugode MLA Palvai Govardhan Reddy, managing only 23,906 votes.
The BJP, despite all the sound, fury and dust it tried to kick up before and during the election, saw its strategy, of luring Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy into its fold from the Congress, backfiring, with the former MLA failing to give a tough fight to Prabhakar Reddy. He could muster only 86,697 votes this time, as against the 96,961 votes he had managed in the 2018 election.
Even mandals from where the BJP expected to gain an upper hand swayed towards the ruling party, which had focused its campaign on how the K Chandrashekhar Rao-led TRS government had solved the decades-old fluorosis issue in the constituency, apart from pointing out that almost every voter in the constituency had benefitted from the State’s welfare schemes.
The hint of a TRS victory began with a lead right from the counting of postal ballot votes. The first round of counting the EVM votes then saw Prabhakar Reddy getting 6418 votes against Rajgopal Reddy’s 5126.
The next two rounds were the sole rounds of solace for the BJP, with Rajgopal Reddy getting 8622 and 7426 as against Prabhakar Reddy’s 7781 and 7390. From then on, the TRS never let go of the overall lead and round-wise lead as well, steadily pushing up the margin, which crossed 4,000 by the 10th round, and after that, there was no looking back.
Rajgopal Reddy, in fact, gave up the fight and left the counting centre even when three full rounds of counting were remaining.
