NALGONDA: By nightfall, every day, each village in the entire Munugode constituency resembles a mega bar with the cacophony of the guzzlers downing liquor, thanks to the byelection scheduled on November 3. The men are seen walking with a swagger at night fully sloshed and lost to the world.
Two major political parties are alleged to have lifted the floodgates to the liquor into the constituency. According to authorities, about Rs 200 crore worth of liquor has been consumed in October and another Rs 20 crore of liquor is expected to flow into the constituency by November 2, a day before the polling.
Two parties are in the race to keep the electorate in good humour. They have pulled out all stops in reaching liquor, chicken or meat to them every day. The icing on the cake is, of course, Rs 300 to Rs 500 cash that reaches them for their services during the day.
Most of them are agricultural labourers and are happy and contended that with very little effort of campaigning during the day that they are getting good pay and good drink. There are 2.41 lakh voters in seven mandals in the constituency including the newly formed Gattupal.
Even before the notification for the byelection was out, a major political party had stocked enough liquor with one person identified as in charge of the village. The village in-charges give tokens to those who volunteer to campaign for the party and after the day’s work, they get a quarter bottle each.
The party has successfully implemented this system in 179 villages of the constituency. Apart from this, one kg of chicken or meat was distributed to each household on Dasra and Diwali, and regularly on Sundays.
Women are worried about their men who are guzzling alcohol every night and wonder what would happen to their health if they get addicted. This apart, the leaders who are being bought by leading parties are being used to distribute money to the voters. The catch here is that the same leader who is bought over by one party in the morning is allowing himself to be bought by another party by evening. They are getting Rs 2 lakh to Rs 5 lakh to keep the voters in good humour.