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It appears Telangana Rashtra Samithi is gradually emerging as the hot favourite in the by-election to Munugode assembly seat scheduled to be held on November 3.
The high stakes battle for Munugode seat has made the things tougher punters, so much so that the by-poll, which is believed to be the costliest by-election ever held in the state, has become a big gamble for the punters.
While the major political parties are said to be spending Rs 300 crore to Rs 400 crore on luring the voters and leaders, betting is learnt to have gone up to Rs 1,000 crore by now.
Apart from local punters, many big players from Krishna, Guntur, West Godavari, Eluru, Rajahmundry and even Visakhapatnam are camping in Hyderabad and betting on the Munugode by-poll, which is seen as a semifinal for the 2023 assembly polls.
The TRS appears to be the most favourite of the three parties, the other two being the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress. While nobody is willing to bet on the Congress, punters are putting high stakes on TRS candidate K Prabhakar Reddy and BJP candidate Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy.
The betting on the TRS and the BJP is the range of 60:40, with majority of the punters expecting that the TRS candidate would win the seat with a margin of six per cent over the BJP candidate.
But as the polling date approaches, the figure might change and the betting ratio will also undergo a change. Rajagopal Reddy is going all out to pump in huge money in the last two days, while KCR is expected to make a turnaround in the voting pattern with his public meeting at Munugode on Sunday.
In terms of numbers, the political observers say the victory margin for any party may not be more than 15-20,000 votes. Which way it will swing will decide the fortunes of the punters.
