After humiliating defeats in two successive elections in Andhra Pradesh, the Congress hopes to salvage some pride, with YS Sharmila Reddy leading the charge in the electoral battle next month.
The grand old party, which drew a blank in 2014 and 2019 Assembly and Lok Sabha elections in its former stronghold, is desperate to have representation in the Legislature after a decade.
While the appointment of YS Sharmila Reddy as the President of the state Congress in January brought some much-needed enthusiasm in the Congress camp, she is facing an uphill task in her task of reviving its fortunes.
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Political analysts say whatever attention YS Sharmila Reddy enjoys in the state is because she is the sister of incumbent Chief Minister, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy and daughter of late YS Rajasekhara Reddy (YSR), one of the most popular Chief Ministers of pre-bifurcation Andhra Pradesh.
That YSR’s legacy lives on in the state is evident from the fact that the Congress invoked it by choosing YS Sharmila Reddy to lead the efforts for the party’s revival. YS Sharmila Reddy is claiming herself to be the real inheritor of YSR’s political legacy as she belongs to the party he was associated with throughout his life.
Some analysts also believe that YS Sharmila Reddy, being a woman, may also get public sympathy over getting a raw deal from her brother after coming to power. YS Sharmila Reddy had played a key role in running and strengthening the YSRCP when Jagan Mohan Reddy was in jail for more than 16 months in 2012-13 after floating the party and falling-out with the Congress leadership in the aftermath of YSR’s death in a helicopter crash in 2009.
She was instrumental in the YSRCP’s victory in bye-elections in 2012 and carried forward the YSR legacy by undertaking padyatras to mobilise support for her jailed brother, who was projected as a victim of a political conspiracy.
She and her mother Vijayamma, were key players in the YSRCP campaign in 2014 and 2019. Now, during the current election campaign, YS Sharmila Reddy is targeting her brother at almost every meeting for being unfair to her after coming to power in 2019.
“Jagan Anna used to say that Sharmila is not my sister but my daughter. But after coming to power in 2019 he was a changed man,” she said. CM Jagan Mohan Reddy had not fielded YS Sharmila Reddy either in Lok Sabha or Assembly polls in both 2014 and 2019 but she was a key part of the party’s campaign.
After YSRCP stormed to power with a landslide majority, YS Sharmila Reddy had expected some key position in the government or the party. Cracks developed in the family after CM Jagan Mohan Reddy sidelined her.
After lying low for more than one-and-a-half years, she took a plunge into politics in neighbouring Telangana by floating the YSR Telangana Party (YSRTP) in 2021.
Vijayamma attended the party’s launch programme and blessed her daughter even as Jagan Mohan Reddy made it clear through his aides that he differs with his sister.
After the 2014 polls, Jagan Mohan Reddy had decided to confine his party to Andhra Pradesh while his sister tried to build a political career in Telangana by invoking YSR’s legacy and even undertook a state-wide padyatra for this purpose.
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