HYDERABAD: Nalgonda TRS leaders are confident of the pink party’s victory in the bypoll for the Munugode Assembly seat, whenever it is held.They are of the view that the situation vis-a-vis Munugode is different from Huzurabad where the loyalties of the party cadre were divided. Byelection to the Huzurabad Assembly seat was necessitated following the departure of the then minister Eatala Rajender from the party to the BJP, and in doing so, taking away a major chunk of TRS votes.
In Munugode, it is infighting in the Congress that will necessitate the bypoll, TRS leaders say. “The BJP’s presence in the segment is minimal. It remains to be seen how many second-rung leaders will join the BJP along with Rajgopal Reddy and how many leaders will remain with the Congress. The votes will be split between the BJP and the Congress, resulting in some advantage to the TRS,” a ruling party leader from Nalgonda said.
The TRS, according to sources, sensed about a month-and-a-half ago that Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy would switch loyalties from the Congress to the BJP.With this, Energy Minister G Jagadish Reddy started touring the segment from the last one month. He announced about a month-and-a-half ago that Gattupal mandal would be created.After studying the ground level situation, Jagadish Reddy recently had a three-day marathon session with TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao at Pragathi Bhavan. After that the Chief Minister announced that Gattuppal mandal would be created.