It's a KCR v/s Shah battle

Hyderabad: With the Election Commission of India announcing the poll schedule for byelection to the Munugodu Assembly constituency, politics in the state are likely to take a new dimension.

Since the byelections are scheduled to be held on November 3, which is just about a month from now, the three main contenders, TRS, BJP and Congress parties have started fine-tuning their election strategies.

The BJP and Congress propose to invite their national leaders to campaign in every mandal in the constituency. Munugodu has seven mandals and two municipalities.

This bypoll is being touted as Amit Shah v/s KCR battle and assumes great importance in view of the efforts of TRS to launch its national party.

Both the TRS and BJP have taken the polls as a prestige issue. While KCR would directly monitor the poll campaign and work out strategies, Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be spearheading the poll management on a day-to-day basis from Delhi and would also participate in some of the public meetings.

KCR will announce the party candidate on October 5 at the party general body meeting. Despite facing opposition from the local cadres, former MLA K Prabhakhar Reddy is the likely choice of the party.

Prabhakar Reddy lost to Congress candidate Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy in 2018 by 22,552 votes. In 2014, Prabhakar Reddy won by 38,055 votes against Palvai Sravanthi Reddy, who contested as an independent, after the Congress denied her a ticket.

The Congress, which had won the seat six times in the past, wants to try its luck and is planning to hold a series of meetings and yatras in the constituency. TPCC president A Revanth Reddy will spearhead the campaign.

KCR is worried over the poaching of TRS leaders by BJP and hence to put a check to such attempts, he has divided the constituency into 70 units and has asked 70 MLAs, including two ministers KT Rama Rao and T Harish Rao and 20 MLCs to prevent poaching and take up door-to-door campaign to defeat BJP candidate Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy.