Ending the prolonged suspense over the candidature for the by-election to Munugode assembly constituency, TRS president and CM K Chandrasekhar Rao has expectedly decided to field Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy as the party candidate.
The TRS chief announced Prabhakar Reddy’s candidature on Friday, when the nomination process for the by-election began with the issuance of the official notification by the Election Commission of India.
Prabhakar Reddy, an old war horse of the party, has been TRS activist since the party's inception, working closely with the party cadre at the field level. He represented Munugode assembly constituency between 2014 and 2018.
In 2018 December assembly elections, Prabhakar Reddy was defeated by Congress candidate Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy, who has now defected to the Bharatiya Janata Party. Kusukuntla has been the TRS party in-charge of the constituency for quite some time.
However, there has been stiff resistance to his candidature from the local cadre, as Reddy is not accessible to them and the local people.
At one stage, there was a talk that KCR might field former MP and present MLC Gutha Sukhender Reddy from Munugode.
But Sukhender Reddy, being a heavy weight, was not getting along well with other leaders like minister G Jagadish Reddy, who is dominating the Nalgonda district politics for a long time.
Jagadish feels if Sukhender Reddy becomes an MLA, he will take over the party into his grip in the district.
So, after hectic deliberations with the local leaders, TRS activists and district party leadership, the chief minister finalised Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy as the candidate.
“Even survey reports indicate that Reddy has an edge over the others,” sources said.
