Has Rajgopal Reddy conceded defeat even before polling in Munugode

MUNUGODE: Has Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy, the BJP nominee for the Munugode Assembly by-election already thrown in the towel? Has the Congress deserter conceded defeat even before a single ballot is polled?

Speculation is rife in the social media since Wednesday morning that Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy was all set to fly to Melbourne in Australia from Hyderabad, soon after midnight on November 7. A business-class ticket, purportedly booked in the name of Rajgopal Reddy by Malaysia Airlines, has given wings to the strong suspicion that the beleaguered leader has very much read the writing on the wall, well before the polling on November 3 and the D-Day (counting of votes) on November 6.

The purported ticket, circulating on social media platforms, shows the departure time as 00:30 hrs of November 7. More interestingly, the ticket was purportedly booked on November 1 (Tuesday), the last day of the campaigning and two days before the polling.

While having a field day against the BJP and the younger of the Komatireddy brothers, netizens are pointing to the fact that Rajgopal Reddy would be flying out of the country soon after midnight on November 7, broadly on the same night the result for the crucial by-election would be declared. They feel that the former Congress legislator had unwittingly dropped enough hints that he was fast sliding down the slope as in his bid to retain the seat.

They contend that the BJP candidate would not plan to fly out of the country, that too within hours of the people's verdict, if he was indeed nursing high hopes of a victory. Interestingly, the netizens were also curious to know why Rajgopal Reddy did not wait until the November-3 polling was over and instead chose to book his ticket on November 1 itself. They are under the impression that, either by ignorance or by design, the BJP candidate had only managed to send out a distressing message, not only to the BJP cadre but even the electorate of Munugode.