The rows over Telangana Chief Minister’s KCR’s allegation against BJP of efforts to poach 4 Telangana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS) MLAs while have taken centre stage of the state politics, the midnight detention of state BJP chief Bandi Sanjay just ahead of assembly bypoll has added salt to it.
Munugode is going to bypoll along with Mokama and Gopalganj assembly constituencies of Bihar, Andheri (East) of Maharashtra, Adampur of Haryana and Gola Gorakhnath of Uttar Pradesh, and Dhamnagar of Odisha.
As per the reports Telengana Police had taken Sanjay into preventive custody at 2 am in the night, hours before the polling for Munugode assembly constituency was about to start. Sanjay’s convoy that was going towards Munugode had been stopped midway and the state president was taken to Abdullapur Met police station.
Tensions continued as the Munugode BJP candidate Komatireddy Raja Gopal Reddy started protesting in front of the returning officer alleging the absolute misuse of power by the CM K Chandrasekhar Rao and his party.
Notably Raja Gopal Reddy, the current MLA of Munugode won the elections in 2018 from Congress ticket and crossed the fence to join BJP. He is fighting this seat on BJP’s ticket against Congress and TRS. The bypoll election was necessitated when he resigned from his position and joined BJP.
BJP’s compalints to EC against TRS
Earlier in the day BJP submitted a memorandum to Chief Electoral Officer of the state seeking action against a mob of TRS that allegedly attacked BJP MLA Eatala Rajender at Palivela village.
BJP MLA Eatala Rajender claimed he would have been hurt on his head had his gunman not intervened in the incident at Palivela village on Tuesday. The TRS workers had earlier tried to disrupt a campaign meeting of Union Minister G Kishan Reddy, he alleged.
It also said that several TRS MLAs were there in Munugode even after the time of the campaign was over on Tuesday itself.
TRS has also filed a complaint to the state Election Commission and the Police against the alleged attacks by the BJP workers. The working president of the party K T Rama Rao, son of KCR also met Zilla Parishad Chairman of Mulugu district Kusuma Jagadish who was allegedly injured in the “attack with stones by BJP goondas”, PTI reported.
In response to the attack by BJP, CPI State Secretary Kunamneni Sambasiva Rao has said that the whole midnight strike was a strategy by BJP to cancel the bypoll. “The BJP is creating clashes in fear of losing the Munugode elections,” he added.
