YSR Congress party came out with flying colours in bypolls 2012 to eighteen assembly constituencies and one Lok Sabha seat. Led by son of late YSR Reddy, Jagan Reddy, YSR Congress party won 15 seats. The celebrations touched sky in many parts of the state by YSR Congress party activists.

All the efforts of Jagan's mother, YS Vijayamma didn't go waste. People strongly sent across signals to Delhi stating that they were not in favour of the ruling party. Blame it on the lack of efficient leadership or loss of YSR, Congress in state faced the worst situation on June 15, 2012, which will be marked in the history of Indian politics.

When Jagan Reddy started campaigning for by-polls, Congress was confident enough thinking that it has nothing to worry since the name of the party is 'Congress,' a name, which has significant history in Indian politics. But what Congress presumably looked behind was the right candidate.

The state level politics have changed to the core. NTR making clean sweep decades ago with TDP itself proved that people in AP are influenced with local leaders and names of the national parties reportedly don't play any significant role.  This was clearly projected in bypolls 2012. While there was a presumably a debate whether YSR was Congress man or individual politician with independents thoughts, people seemed to have convinced with the latter as the name YSR Congress party apparently fetched 15 seats out of 18 assembly seats that fell vacant when speaker disqualified  the MLAs who tried to destabilize the government last year. The disqualified members joined YSR Congress and contested again, but under the shade of a different flag (YSR Congress) and people gave their verdict.

The future of Congress party is at stake, say experts. These results prove that Congress party is likely to be washed out of the state if Congress doesn't concentrate on prominence of state level leadership. And after YSR, only Chiranjeevi has that much charisma in Congress party.

(AW Phani)