Hyderabad: TRS Munugode candidate Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy, who won from the constituency in 2014, is determined to wrest the seat on the back of the TRS government’s welfare schemes and development programmes. He believes people in Munugode were repenting their decision of electing Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy in 2018.
In addition to the TRS welfare programmes, Prabhakar thinks the unprecedented support provided by the party leadership by stationing 14 ministers and 86 MLAs in the constituency will be to his advantage.
Prabhakar, who is preoccupied with visiting a dozen villages every day, claimed in an exclusive phone conversation with Deccan Chronicle on Friday that his win is inevitable and that he is only aiming at securing majority:
Excerpts:
It’s been three months since you began campaigning. How are the people responding?
I have covered all seven mandals, two municipalities, and nearly 100 of the 157 gram panchayats. I will cover the rest before the campaigning ends. I’ve noticed that the people want the TRS to win so that the welfare schemes and development programmes that were derailed during the last three-and-a-half years of Rajgopal’s tenure, will resume. All our survey reports indicate that TRS will win this bypoll with a margin of 40,000 to 50,000 votes, with BJP and Congress just competing for second place.
Why are 86 MLAs and 14 ministers camping since Dasara if the TRS is confident?
This is our party’s plan of action. Why is Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting Gujarat every other day with scores of Union ministers?
You were defeated by the same voters less than four years ago and you face the same rival, Rajgopal Reddy. How has the situation changed?
Everywhere I go, people are regretting supporting Rajgopal. They believe he ignored the constituency. In the previous four years, he hardly ever went to Munugode. He didn’t even have time to hand over the cheques for the CMRF, Kalyana Laxmi, and Shaadi Mubarak. Because Rajgopal never bothered to submit any development ideas to the government, the funds that the state government had sanctioned for Munugode were returned.
Rajgopal was only interested in his business activities and contracts. He joined Congress in 2009 for contracts and quit to join BJP for a Rs 18,000 crore coal contract. I am sure Munugode people will not commit the same mistake.
The TRS claims that almost every household is receiving one or the other welfare scheme and they will ensure victory for TRS. But these schemes were also there in 2018 and at Dubbak and Huzurabad.
I feel people believed their (Opposition’s) fake promises of “2 lakh crop loan waiver, Rs 3,000 pension to farmers, unemployed etc. But within no time, people realised that they won on the back of deception and treachery and they are now ready to teach a fitting lesson to the BJP and Congress in Munugode bypoll.
The TRS has been in power for more than eight years. How can anti-incumbency be avoided?
Our party’s biggest strengths are Chief Minister K. Chandrasekar Rao and working president K. T. Rama Rao. The people have the utmost faith in them. They have delivered more than what people expected in the last eight years in terms of welfare schemes and development programmes. People cannot quickly forget the good work of the TRS government. I have faith that people would recognise and value the wonderful job done by the TRS government and continue to support TRS. If anti-incumbency exists, it will be overshadowed by the reputation that KCR and KTR.
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