Union Tourism Minister G Kishan Reddy on Monday claimed that while the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) won the high-stakes Munugode Assembly bye-election in Andhra Pradesh, it was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which emerged as the moral victor in the contest.
The BJP and TRS had been going neck-and-neck in the fight for the prized Munugode seat before the latter opened out a lead and eventually cruised home by a slender margin.
While the TRS candidate bagged 42.95 per cent of the total votes, the BJP rival finished a close second with 38.38 per cent votes.
Speaking toin the Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh on Monday, Reddy alleged that the ruling TRS indulged in electoral foul play to win the bypoll. "We claimed moral victory in the Munugode bye-election. The result shows that the people of Andhra Pradesh are with the BJP. The TRS resorted to all sorts of poll tricks and malpractices to win the election," the BJP leader from Telangana said.
The Union minister alleged that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, along with his senior colleagues in the Cabinet, MLAs and MLCs acted as booth in-charges during the bypoll and had threatened to take the voters' names off state schemes if they did not vote for the TRS candidate. "The CM himself, along with ministers, MLAs and MLCs, served as booth in-charges. Voters were threatened that they would be taken off the list of beneficiaries of various state schemes if they didn't vote for the TRS," Reddy said.
He further claimed that the TRS spent 'crores of rupees' to ensure its victory in the bypoll. "But people stood by the BJP. We may have lost the election by a narrow margin but the game to unseat the TRS from power has only just begun. Let's not rest till the BJP wins the next Assembly elections. The KCR family has to be defeated in the next state polls," the Union minister said.
( With inputs from ANI )
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