Will Munugode by-poll be the costliest election in India’s electoral history?

New Delhi: It is literally raining money and liquor in the Munugode constituency of Telangana where the by-poll will be held on November 3 with some claiming that it is the costliest election in the electoral history of the country.

A fierce three-cornered contest is on the cards with the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) battling it out against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress.

The by-poll was necessitated after Congress legislator Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy defected to the BJP and resigned from the assembly in August this year. He is contesting on the BJP ticket this time.

The by-elections have been billed as a referendum on the performance of chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, popularly known as KCR. Many have called these semi-finals before the finale next year.

The TRS has fielded former legislator K Prabhakar Reddy while Palvai Sravanthi is the Congress candidate. Votes will be counted on November 6.

According to media reports, the influence of money and liquor is on full display as political parties were offering sops to the voters.

The local media claimed that apart from money, mutton, chicken and liquor have been supplied to households during evenings while some parties even distributed kitchen and other household articles such as pressure cookers and wall clocks. In some cases, cars and bikes too are said to have been distributed while gold coins were given during Diwali.

Political parties have attacked each other for these allurements.

In its complaint to the Election Commission of India (ECI), the TRS alleged that Komatireddy, who is the richest candidate in the fray, on October 14, 28 and 29 transferred Rs 5.24 crore from his company to 23 different bank accounts in the constituency to buy votes, and that he has assured the BJP leadership of spending over Rs 500 crore to win the elections.

The ECI later asked Komatireddy to explain the money transfers.

The ruling party further claimed that Komatireddy’s Sushee Infra and Mining Limited company was awarded a coal mining contract worth Rs 18,000 crore following which he resigned from the Congress and joined the BJP. It is also alleged that he had paid Rs 20 lakh and Rs 10 lakh to sarpanches and block-level leaders for their support.

During the past few weeks, the Telangana police had seized in Hyderabad alone over Rs 10 crore in cash, including Rs one crore from a BJP corporator’s car, that was being transported to Munugode.

It is alleged that the present rate to induce a voter is between Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000. Apart from food and liquor, Rs 500 and Rs 1000 were being paid to those who attend an election meeting of a political party.

Telangana Congress President Revanth Reddy even went to the extent of claiming that the Munugode by-poll was the world’s costliest election.

That said, the Huzurabad by-election in November last year too witnessed huge money spending.

BJP candidate Eatala Rajender, who won the seat, then claimed KCR had spent about Rs 600 crore in the Huzurabad by-election.

He had further claimed that another Rs 2,500 crore were disbursed in the constituency under the Dalit Bandhu scheme.

A seven-time legislator, Rajender, 57, had been a part of the ruling TRS since 2003 and served as finance minister in KCR’s first term from 2014 to 2018 and then as health minister from February 2019 to May 2021 when he was unceremoniously removed from the cabinet following allegations of land grabbing.

He subsequently resigned from the TRS and the assembly and subsequently joined the BJP.

Rajender had then claimed that the going rate ranged from Rs 6,000 to even Rs 10,000 per vote.

The Congress too claimed that while KCR had spent over Rs 600 crore, Rajender tried to match him with Rs 300 crore.

The grand old party claimed it was a contest between Eatala’s self-respect with a price-tag of Rs 500 crore and KCR’s politics and pride worth Rs 5,500 crore, and insisted that one should now have a minimum of Rs 500 crore to contest an election.

While the Huzurabad by-poll was billed as one of the costliest by-elections in India's electoral history, Munugode now appears to have surpassed that. And there seems no end to it.