In the first week of January 2024, YS Sharmila, the president of the YSR Telangana Party, is expected to combine her party with the Congress. Congress insiders suggest that Sjarmila would be assigned a prominent job within the party’s central leadership, with a focus on active participation in Andhra Pradesh’s state assembly and the upcoming Lok elections in early 2024. In the event that this occurs, a member of the YSR family will face off against the YSRC, which is headed by chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.
In 2009, following the demise of former chief minister YS Rajashekhar Reddy, his son Jagan established a political party. At that point, YSR’s wife Vijyamma and daughter Sharmila had taken Jagan’s side. According to party sources, the first round of merger negotiations with Congress would go back up in the third week of December after being put on hold because of the Telangana assembly elections. According to sources, Sharmila has consented to accept the position of general secretary in the AICC. In her role as general secretary, she will also be given command over one northern state.
Sharmila would therefore run for Andhra Pradesh’s Congress seat in the general elections of 2024. During the impending elections in Andhra Pradesh, she has been invited to two election meetings: one in Visakhapatnam and another in Vijayawada. According to people close to Sharmila, she would conduct the meeting in Visakhapatnam with the Visakha Steel Plant and in Vijaywada with Amaravati. Rahul Gandhi in Vijayawada and Priyanka Vadra in Visakhapatnam would accompany Sharmila. Sharmila has not yet responded to the party’s invitation for her to speak at another meeting in Rayalaseema.
She allegedly informed Congress that she didn’t want to sway the Rayalaseema region’s support for her brother Jagan. According to the source, discussions are underway on her nomination to the Rajya Sabha from neighboring Karnataka or from sources who spoke with TOI. She is not sure if she wants to run in direct elections to become an MP or use the Rajya Sabha to get into parliament.
She reportedly told Congress that she was not interested in undermining her brother Jagan’s popularity in the Rayalaseema region. Sources claim that talks are in progress on her nominations for either the Lok Sabha from Telangana’s Khammam seat or the Rajya Sabha from nearby Karnataka. Sources who spoke with the media claim that she hasn’t made a decision yet. She is unsure whether she would prefer to use the Rajya Sabha to gain entry into parliament or run in direct elections to become an MP. Speaking with reporters on Friday morning at her home in Lotus Pond, Sharmila explained that she had chosen not to run in the Telangana assembly elections in order to maintain the unity of the pro-Congress vote. Sharmila declared that in view of the revelations about corruption and misrule, all groups with similar goals should collaborate for the good of Telangan’s people.
