The Munugode byelection, which held on Sunday, has assumed significance as its result would give an edge to the winner ahead of next year’s legislative assembly elections. During the poll campaign, leaders from three parties, TRS, BJP and Congress were seen levelling allegations against each other. Political parties left no stone unturned to win the seat. Even they were seen promising gold to voters.
Congress leader has fielded Palvai Sravanthi Reddy, daughter of ex-MP Palvai Govardhan Reddy. While the TRS has fielded former MLA Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy, who had lost to Rajagopal Reddy in 2018. Reddy had contested on the BJP ticket. There were a total of 47 candidates in the fray but the main contest is among three major players BJP, Congress and TRS.
The counting of votes began at 8 am. After the first round of counting, TRS candidate Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy was at leading position. Later, at the end of the second and third round counting, BJP candidate Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy was in lead. And after four rounds, TRS was in lead by 714 votes, against BJP. Totally at the end of fourth round counting, TRS was in lead with 26,443 votes, whereas BJP was trailing with 25,729 votes.
After 5 rounds, TRS candidate K Prabhakar Reddy who acquired 32,505 votes was in the leading position, and the BJP and Congress were having only 30,974 and 10,063 respectively.
Finally after 15 rounds of counting, TRS defeated BJP by 10,113 votes against BJP, which stood in the second position with 86,485 votes and Congress came to third position with 23,864 votes. So, TRS did a clean sweep in the Munugode byelection and set a tone for 2023.