Whatever little doubt one had about the possibility of holding by-elections to Munugode assembly seat in Telangana’s Nalgonda district was cleared on Monday, when state assembly speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy accepting the resignation of sitting MLA Komtireddy Rajagopal Reddy.
Rajagopal, who resigned from the Congress party and announced that he would be joining the Bharatiya Janata Party on August 21, went to the office of the Speaker and submitted his resignation letter.
Within minutes, the Speaker accepted the resignation and his office issued a notification to that effect.
The notification on the vacancy for Munugode seat would be sent to the Election Commission later in the day.
Initially, there was a suspicion that the Speaker might not accept Rajagopal’s resignation immediately, but would sit over the same for some more time, as the Telangana Rashtra Samithi government headed by K Chandrasekhar Rao doesn’t want the by-election immediately.
The reason for this suspicion was that KCR might go in for early elections to the state assembly in another six months and so, there is no point in holding the by-elections for just one seat now.
Even otherwise, hardly one year is left for the assembly elections and assuming that the by-election to Munugode is held in October or November, the incumbent would have only one year to be in the state.
So, the TRS leadership was wondering whether the TRS candidate will be willing to spend Rs 20-30 crore on the by-poll for the sake of one year-MLA post.
If the candidate cannot afford the same, the party has to bear such a huge expenditure.
Thirdly, even after spending such a big money on the Munugode by-election, if the TRS cannot win the seat and Rajagopal retains the seat on the BJP ticket, it will be a big blow to KCR before the next elections and it will give a big boost to the BJP.
So, the talk was that Rajagopal’s resignation won’t be accepted immediately.
But with the Speaker accepting without any blinking, it is evident that KCR has decided to take a calculated risk.
He must be either confident of winning the seat or might be planning to extend secret support to the Congress to ensure that the BJP doesn’t win the seat.
It will not only demoralise the BJP but also Rajagopal individually.
At the same time, it will not affect the TRS prospects much, as it is not representing Munugode. Moreover, it will avoid financial burden on the TRS!