561 votes over his nearest rival K Surekha of YSR Congress. This is the lowest majority recorded in the bypolls.
The biggest win was for YSR Congress candidate M Rajamohan Reddy at Nellore. He contested on a YSR Congress ticket after walking out of the Congress. Taking on Congress heavyweight T Subbarami Reddy and TDP's V Venugopal Reddy, Rajamohan romped home with a majority of 2,91,745 votes.
Though the bypolls, for which notification was issued in April 2012, had turned predictable, with Jagan kicking off the campaign much before the elections were formally declared, his arrest by the CBI on May 27 in a disproportionate assets case turned into a game changer. Taking advantage of the arrest, Jagan's mother and former chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy's widow Vijaya and Jagan's sister Sharmila had hit the streets crying foul at the way he was arrested, calling it a conspiracy by the Congress high command.
"The sympathy wave has worked well for YSR Congress. Jagan's team has worked well on converting every single development related to the case to its advantage. The party's strategy to send Vijaya and Sharmila to campaign and explain how YSR had worked hard for the Congress and the way the Congress high command has been treating the former CM's son paid off," a senior Congress source said.
However, the Congress leadership has a different take on the loss. "Some issues related to the governance have gone against us. For instance, the petrol price hike and severe power cuts during the summer have created an anti-establishment mood among the voters. We will analyse the results and prepare for the 2014 elections," B Satyanarayana, the PCC president, said, indirectly blaming CM N Kiran Kumar Reddy's government.
What is interesting is the way the Congress bigwigs, including Vayalar Ravi, Ghulam Nabi Azad, CM Reddy, Rajya Sabha MP and one-time matinee idol Chiranjeevi and Satyanarayana, who were all touring the constituencies, failed in communicating to the voters the disadvantages in voting for Jagan or the advantages in voting for the Congress.