Curtains down on Munugode bypoll campaign

The high-decibel, no holds barred campaign for the November 3 bypoll in the Munugode Assembly Constituency came to an end on Tuesday

Nalgonda: The high-decibel, no holds barred campaign for the November 3 bypoll in the Munugode Assembly Constituency came to an end on Tuesday, with the Bharatiya Janata Party taking out violence as the last straw in its attempt to gain an upper hand in the electioneering.

The campaigning till Tuesday had by and large seen peaceful campaigning except for the acerbic exchange of charges and counter-charges between all political parties. Sunday, however, saw the scales tilting heavily towards the Telangana Rashtra Samithi after Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao reached Bangarigadda and pulled off a verbal surgical strike on the BJP, targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi directly and tearing into the saffron party’s attempts to topple the TRS government.

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The Chief Minister’s call to the people of Munugode to create history by helping him set the Bharat Rashtra Samithi juggernaut rolling from their constituency, and calling the four MLAs onto the stage whom the BJP attempted to buy while declaring that the self-respect of Telangana was not on sale amidst vociferous cheering by the massive crowd, grabbed national headlines.

The out-and-out onslaught clearly threw the BJP off balance, with the desperation to grab the momentum reaching violent levels on Tuesday, when the party’s workers unleashed attacks on TRS rallies, injuring several persons including MLC Palla Rajeshwar Reddy, MLA Peddireddy Sudarshan Reddy and Mulugu Zilla Parishad chairman Jagadish.

Videos of the leaders, bleeding profusely after the clashes, were circulated widely with party leaders including TRS working president KT Rama Rao censuring the BJP for its tactics. A vehicle in the convoy of BJP leader Eatala Rajender too was damaged in the clashes between BJP and TRS supporters.

Earlier in the day, the campaigning for Koosukuntla Prabhakar Rao saw Rama Rao taking out road shows at Choutuppal, Chandur, Gattuppal, Sansthan Narayanpur and Munugode, pulling in large crowds, while Finance Minister T Harish Rao also took to the road, campaigning at Marriguda and Nampally with the crowds cheering for the TRS all along.

On the other side of the political wall, BJP candidate Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy had union Minister G Kishan Reddy, BJP State president Bandi Sanjay, MLAs Eatala Rajender and M Raghunandan Rao campaigning for him. Interestingly, Rajgopal Reddy’s campaign ended without the expected fireworks, with none of the BJP’s national leaders turning up for meetings that were scheduled in the constituency. Even a public meeting that BJP national president JP Nadda was slated to hold on Monday was called off.

On Thursday, the constituency will see 2.41 lakh voters heading to cast their vote at 298 polling stations, where arrangements are in place to webcast the process. There are 105 polling stations classified as critical while 1,192 polling personnel in addition to over 300 in reserve have been drafted. A total of 3,366 State police personnel and 15 companies of the Central paramilitary forces have been deployed.