“Munugode bhavishyat ni telchedi chukkaa mukkaa ne,” (Liquor and meat will decide the future of Munugode) said a fruit seller in Shivannagudem village in poll-bound Munugode. This sentiment aptly sums up the mood in Munugode, where the bye-poll is scheduled for November 3. Leaders from both the ruling TRS and the BJP have been visiting the town daily to canvas for their respective candidates.
According to people in the constituency, every evening political parties are sponsoring alcohol and biryani in several areas where campaigning is happening. “Besides the liquor and meat, depending on how much money is distributed in the last few days, public opinion will sway until the last day,” the fruit seller added. “We have never seen an election where there is so much talk about money that will be distributed. People are determined to make use of the opportunity. Whoever pays more will end up winning,” he added.
About 40 km away in Singaram village, 70-year-old E Lachchaiah said he has been accepting alcohol from both the TRS and the BJP. He had no qualms admitting that he would accept everything that is offered. “If I take a quarter [about 180 ml of alcohol, in local parlance] from one party and not from the other, they will be disappointed that I’ve already made up my mind without even giving them a chance. So, I’ve decided to take from both and then vote for the TRS.” In the same breath, a dejected Lachchaiah added, “There are talks about big money that will be distributed, but all we’ve got so far are quarters.”
E Lachchaiah poses for a photo enroute to his farm
Lachchaiah represents the section of people who are likely to vote for the TRS. He said that he has benefitted from the government’s Rythu Bandhu scheme (financial help for farmers) and also gets his old age pension on time every month. As he spoke, Union Minister G Kishan Reddy’s convoy zoomed past us.
A little away, sitting at the entrance of her house was Gurrala Bayamma, a septuagenarian. Behind her, one can’t miss the posters of the TRS, BJP and Congress candidates stuck on her gate. “The talk is that women will be given a tola of gold each,” she said, her face beaming with joy. One tola is equivalent to 10 grams of gold, which costs nearly Rs 50,000. When asked which party has promised this, she said she heard it from some women in her village.
Bayamma sits at the entrance of her house
TNM heard this from women in other villages too but no one really knew which party was going to gift them the awaited gold. “I’m happy with the TRS. I just hope that they will decide to deliver the pension home,” said Bayamma, who needs a walker to move around.
While Lachchaiah and Bayamma seem to have decided to support the pink party’s Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy, Guruja Saidulu, a 34-year-old cotton farmer from the same village, felt the BJP candidate Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy, who he portrayed as Munugode’s Robin Hood, deserved another chance. Rajagopal resigned as the MLA of the constituency, which necessitated the bye-poll in Munugode. “Rajagopal’s resignation paved the way for a lot of changes. The Choutuppal to Narayanpur road was laid in two days after he resigned. Our village did not have a bus service. Two buses are now plying ever since he resigned. Clearly, his resignation has startled the TRS,” said Saidulu. “Despite not getting funds from the government, he has spent so much for the constituency. He may have earned crores as claimed, but he has always given to the poor. He feeds the hungry and that is what leaders are meant to do,” he added.
Saidulu's mother Nagamma segregates their cotton harvest
Mahesh Goud, a 27-year-old who works in his agricultural field in the mornings and then at a puncture shop in Marrigudem, also felt that Rajagopal’s resignation has brought good fortune to Munugode. The two-time TRS supporter has been rather dejected ever since his father passed away three months ago. “For three days, I was billed Rs 5 lakh at a private hospital in Hyderabad. Despite having Aarogyasri (state health scheme), they said it wasn’t eligible. I sold my harvest to pay the bill. There are many people who had to sell off their lands to afford hospital bills. Any leader who provides Vidya (education), Vaidya (healthcare) and jobs only deserves to win. I had voted for the TRS hoping they would deliver, but now they don’t deserve another chance.”
For the younger voters in Munugode, the lack of jobs is a major concern. Katama Raji, an intermediate dropout and a second-time voter in Goutuppal, a newly formed mandal in Munugode, said that the absence of jobs has infuriated the youth. “We had fought for Telangana thinking it would open up new jobs for us, however this hasn’t happened. The youth are angry and the talk is that most will mark their protest by voting for the BJP.” Sitting next to him was his father Goud, who does toddy tapping and cotton cultivation for a living, who said the battle was between the TRS and Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy. “Shravanthi [the Congress candidate] can’t counter the money power of Rajagopal and the TRS. After all, it’s all about money,” he added.
J Srinivas sat at his mutton shop fiddling with his phone. He said that though chicken sales have hit the roof, the sale of mutton – the more expensive meat – has not seen too much of a change this election season. “Those who used to sell 10 birds a day are now selling anywhere between 50-100. Political parties are buying chicken in large quantities to cook and distribute to the people who attend rallies.” Srinivas is disappointed that the people are only looking for short-term benefits from the bye-election. “No one is demanding solutions to essential issues in the constituency. Everyone is only bothered about the day’s quarter, chicken and money.”
One of the many roads where the works began after Rajagopal's resignation
TNM met several more residents in Munugode and it clearly seemed like they were divided between the TRS and the BJP. As the BJP did not have a prominent presence in this region, the migration of a large Congress cadre to the BJP is what Rajagopal Reddy has apparently pinned his hopes on. Interestingly, a very large number of people had no reservations in accepting that they would vote for whichever party that offered them more.
It seems apparent that the real battle in Munugode is between BJP candidate Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy and CM KCR, while there is hardly any mention of the TRS candidate or the BJP itself.