Munugode roads clogged, Google Maps says you are on fastest route

MUNUGODE: Rallies, street corner meetings, march pasts with sloganeering workers from various parties, the narrow and twisting roads clogged with vehicles ranging from swanky politician-owned to police vehicles, including some beat-up police vans, and of course, campaign vehicles of all hues. And the thousands of two-wheelers flying party flags of different hues.

This was the scene in Munugode on the final day of the campaign for the November 3 byelection, with leaders from the TRS, BJP, and Congress, as well as leaders and workers from other parties and independents, making a beeline for the town to make their last and final pitches to the electorate, even as they fanned out to other villages and towns in the constituency.

Just how clogged several roads in the Munugode constituency were on Tuesday was succinctly summed up by Google Maps that kept telling anyone using the feature on their smartphones to find their way about from one village to the other, or from one town to the next. “Despite heavier than usual traffic,” Google Maps helpfully informed, “you are on the fastest route”.

TRS candidate Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy, as well as party heavyweights such as K.T. Rama Rao, T. Harish Rao, and a slew of ministers and ruling party MLAs, were among those who took to the streets on Tuesday. Leaders from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rushed about led by its candidate Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy and his wife K Lakshmi, while others including Etala Rajendar and his wife Jamuna, G. Vivek Venkatswamy, and A. Revanth Reddy along with his party candidate Palvai Sravanthi led the charge for the Congress party.

While roads in the constituency were clogged much of the day, as campaigning came to a halt in the evening, roads experienced "heavier than usual traffic" with all the political leaders and workers who camped in Munugode for a month. With several meetings being held on the streets and addressed from mobile stages – lorries converted into campaign dais – there were a number of traffic diversions in the constituency on Tuesday.