In 2012, when her brother Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, who is now the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, was in prison on corruption charges, Y.S. Sharmila went on a padayatra in support of him. She said then in what became a popular slogan, “Nenu Jagan vadilina baanam (an arrow released by brother Jagan).” In 2021, when she launched the YSR Telangana Party, many borrowed this slogan and tweaked it to say, “BJP vadilina baanam” as they perceived the move to be as an attempt by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to divide the Congress vote bank. However, after two years of leaving no significant imprint on Telangana politics, Ms. Sharmila seems to be heading towards a new destination, the Congress.
The speculation that Ms. Sharmila plans to merge the YSR Telangana Party with the Congress intensified when she met senior Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi recently in New Delhi.
Ms. Sharmila carries weight in Telangana as she is the daughter of former Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, but she also comes with baggage. The baggage is what perturbs some leaders of the Telangana Congress who believe that her father was the party’s biggest impediment to the formation of Telangana.
