Reluctant Sharmila now ready to shoulder responsibility to revive Congress in Andhra

After initially refusing to join Congress bandwagon in the state where she would be directly pitted against her brother Jagan, Sharmila has finally fallen in line.

Hyderabad: Bringing curtains down on a long drawn suspense, Andhra Pradesh chief minister, Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy’s sister, Y S Sharmila had finally announced she is going to merge her YSRTP with the Congress.

In a meeting on Tuesday, at her Lotus Pond residence in Hyderabad, Sharmila told her followers that she would be merging YSRTP with the Congress and would join the grand old party on January 4 in Delhi in the presence of AICC top leadership Mallikharjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

While refusing to divulge any details about her role in the Congress, Sharmila is said to have told her followers that AICC had offered APCC chief and national general secretary posts. However, she is yet to take a call on the AICC offer, sources in Sharmila camp told DH.

“I myself will talk to the media. Everything will be clear in a day or two,” Sharmila told reporters after the meeting. While initially she was reluctant to take up the Congress party’s responsibilities in Andhra Pradesh where she would be directly pitted against her brother Jagan, she seems to have had a change of heart.

After joining the Congress, Sharmila is expected to shoulder the responsibility to revive the party in Andhra Pradesh. After the state bifurcation in 2014, the Congress was totally decimated in Andhra Pradesh.

Sharmila would be visiting her father Y S Rajasekhar Reddy’s memorial at the Y S family estate in Idupulapaya of Kadapa in the afternoon. Sharmila on January 1 announced that her son Y S Raja Reddy's marriage has been fixed for February 17 and that she would be visiting YSR Ghat in Idupulapaya to present the first invitation and seek her father’s blessings.

After returning to Hyderabad from Kadapa, Sharmila is expected to leave for Delhi on Wednesday evening.

APCC president Gidugu Rudraraju on Monday said that their party’s top leadership had already informed them that Sharmila would be joining the Congress and he hoped her entry would strengthen the party in Andhra Pradesh.

Sources in YSRCP told DH that some of the ruling party leaders, including a few sitting MLAs, are willing to join the Congress in Andhra Pradesh after Sharmila’s entry to the grand old party.

Majority of the MLAs who were doubtful of party nomination to fight the 2024 polls are ready to leave YSRCP. Jagan had already started an exercise to replace at least 40 sitting MLAs in the 2024 polls.

“I’m ready to walk along with Y S Sharmila. I've been a loyal follower of the YSR family. We're expecting her decision to be out soon,” YSRCP ML, Alla Ramakrishna Reddy, who defeated TDP scion Nara Lokesh in the 2019 polls, in Mangalagiri told reporters recently.

Miffed with reports that he would not be re-nominated to contest from Mangalagiri in 2024 polls, Ramakrishna Reddy, who is popularly known as RK, had resigned as an MLA and also to YSRCP recently.

In a dramatic U-turn, Y S Sharmila on November 3, just days before Telangana assembly polls, announced her party YSRTP’s unconditional support to the Congress for the state polls held last year.

After a snub from the Congress just days before the announcement, Sharmila, said her party would go it alone in the polls.

Earlier, she had approached the Congress with a proposal to merge her party. However, it was learnt that talks between both the parties had reached nowhere and as the poll schedule had been announced by ECI, Sharmila had decided to go it alone and conveyed the same to her partymen in a meeting in October.

It was speculated that she herself would contest from the Palair segment in Khammam district. However, she stayed away from Telangana polls.

Sharmila had launched YSRTP on July 8, 2021, coinciding the birth anniversary of her father Y S Rajasekhar Reddy. With the slogan of bringing 'Rajanna Rajyam' of the welfare state, she had also taken out a pada yatra in Telangana and was arrested multiple times by the Telangana police. However, she could not elicit a proper response from the public.

She had also met Congress top brass Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi for the first time in many years after her brother walked out of the grand old party in 2011, to further take forward the proposal to merge YSRTP.