The infighting between Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and Pradesh Congress Committee president has landed them in serious trouble so much that it is now all set to cost them their posts.

Obviously taking serious note of the party’s miserable position in the state and erosion of the party’s image due to serious differences between the Chief Minister and the PCC president, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has given them one last chance to survive: win at least half of the seats in the forthcoming by-elections to 18 assembly seats. Otherwise, both of them would be shown the door.

Now the moot question is whether Kiran and Botsa would live up to the expectations of Sonia Gandhi. According to political observers, the victory of YSR Congress party candidates in almost all the seats, barring one or two, is a foregone conclusion. And it will be an uphill task for the Congress party to win at least two or three seats, leave alone nine seats.

If that were to happen, Kiran and Botsa would have to lose their posts in the next three or four months. In any case, the Congress party would have to face disintegration after the by-elections.