The last day of withdrawal of candidature is on Monday, 17 October. Some of the candidates are expected to withdraw the nominations.
Published Oct 16, 2022 | 6:22 PM ⚊ Updated Oct 16, 2022 | 6:23 PM
Congress Candidate P Sravanthi, TRS candidate Koosukuntla Prabhakar Reddy and BJP candidate Komtireddy Rajgopal Reddy for Munude by election. (Supplied)
The Munugode by-election, which is seeing a high voltage drama in Telangana, saw the candidature of as many as 83 contestants approved by the Election Commission after scrutiny on Saturday, 15 October.
The last day of withdrawal of candidature is on Monday, 17 October. Some candidates are expected to withdraw their nominations. The final list of candidates will be published after that.
A total of 192 nominations were filed by 130 candidates in Munugode. Out of them, 108 nomination papers of 83 candidates were found valid.
Those who filed nomination papers included BJP candidate Komatireddy Raj Gopal Reddy, the TRS’ Koosukuntla Prabhakar Reddy, and the Congress’ P Sravanthi.
They filed multiple sets of nomination papers so that if one paper was rejected, the other might help them stay in the fray. And that is exactly what happened with Raj Gopal Reddy and P Sravanthi.
Out of the 83 candidates whose nomination papers were found valid, 70 are independent.
Meanwhile, many smaller regional and unrecognised parties have fielded candidates for the election.
These include the Telangana Republican Party, Telangana Jaghir Party, National Nava Kranthi Party, Social Justice Party of India, Telangana Sakalajanula Party, Samaikyandhra Parirakshana Samithi, Telangana Jana Samithi, Telangana Rashtra Punahnirmana Samithi, National Nava Kranthi Party, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Red Star, India Praja Bandhu Party, All India Majlis-E-Inquilab-E-Millat, and the Jai Maha Bharath Party candidates.
Many Charlagudem land oustees affected by the Dindi lift irrigation project, and demanding relief and rehabilitation packages on a par with the Mallannasagar oustees, are contesting the election as independent candidates.
The Dindi project is being constructed at a cost of ₹6,190 crore.
Residents of Charlagudem, Narsireddy Gudem, Lenkapally, Laxmipuram, Venkepally, and Venkepally Thanda villages in the Marriguda mandal in the Munugode constituency lost their land and homes due to this project.
These en masse nominations are similar to the mass nominations filed during the 2019 Lok Sabha Election: Back then, 85 candidates filed nominations from the Nizamabad constituency.
They were agitating farmers in the district, demanding a National Turmeric Board to ensure steady prices for turmeric. Their target was the then sitting MP Kalvakuntla Kavitha, daughter of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao. Kavitha was defeated by the BJP candidate, Arvind Dharmapuri.
A similar move took a toll on the TRS in the 2020 Dubbaka by-election.
In a nail-biting contest, BJP candidate M Raghunandhan Rao secured a win by a narrow margin of 1,079 votes over the TRS’ Solipeta Sujata. There were around 20 independent candidates in the election, who cornered around 9,000 votes.
A rerun of this could be a headache for all the major political parties in the Munugode by-election.
According to the Election Commission, Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) can cater to a maximum of 64 candidates.
A single Balloting Unit (BU) can take votes for 16 candidates. If the total number of candidates exceeds 16, a second BU can be linked parallel to the first one.
Similarly, if the total number of candidates exceeds 32, a third BU can be attached. If the total number of candidates exceeds 48, a fourth BU comes into play.
In case the number of contesting candidates goes beyond 64 in any constituency, EVMs cannot be used.
“The conventional method of voting by means of ballot boxes and ballot paper will have to be adopted in such a constituency,” the ECI states.
However, Nalgonda District Collector T Vinay Krishna told reporters that despite the number of candidates exceeding 64, the voting would take place through EVMs.
After the announcement of the final list of candidates, the Election Commission will put out the complete details about voting in the constituency.
