Does Congress lost its plot in by-polls?

Hyderabad: The Congress Party appears to be reconciling with the inevitable. Its leaders acknowledge, it is not an entirely unpredictable outcome. The party functionaries and cadres who have been in the thick of electioneering for over a month are now trying to reconcile with the inevitable.

Though they have all pinned high hopes on more than half a dozen seats initially, they are now busy checking out with the booth level feedback to ascertain how decent was the fight put up by the party at least in its strongholds.

The euphoria that comes with the feel of a positive culmination to a battle royal is certainly missing at Gandhi Bhavan -the headquarters of the party. Leaders and campaigners who have come back from the constituencies are cooling off the heels.

They are neither in a mood to give any credence to the predictions given by the exit polls nor to dismiss them as assumptions based on falsehood. Their responses were not forthright.

Some of the leaders were sounding somewhat confident of winning at least three seats including Tirupati and Narsapur. But they find it difficult to get positive indications in support of their assumptions in the post poll scenario.

The party had a good beginning and it appeared to be a win-win situation for the party leadership as both the Chief Minister, N Kiran Kumar Reddy and the PCC chief Botsa Satyanarayana spearheaded the campaign jointly thus sinking their differences, thanks to the coordinating efforts of Vayalar Ravi, Union Minister. But much of the planning that went into the campaign has gone awry with the ill-timed arrest of the YSRCP.

The arrest came in as a blessing in disguise of the YSR Congress Party which was doubtful of even making its strong presence felt in some of the constituencies. 'We never expected illegal disproportionate assets to ooze sympathy for Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy. It is certainly the making of the CBI and the Congress party should not have any hesitation to dedicate the outcome of the by-poll to CBI', observed a leader.

The Congress is worried more about the huge turnout and women making predominant presence in the queues in front of polling stations. Vijayamma could cash in on the odds of the YSRCP.

She made inroads into the Congress support base. She has cast shadow on the Congress prospects. The mass appeal of the the Congress party star campaigners such as Chiranjeevi proved to be no match to the sympathy generated by her as the sufferer. Her cry for public support was instantly responded.