Will Sharmila queer the pitch for Jagan?

The Congress party just raised its stakes in Andhra Pradesh by handing over the reins of the state unit to Y S Sharmila, estranged sister of Chief Minister Y S Jaganmohan Reddy. Elections to the 175-member state assembly will be held alongside the Lok Sabha elections this summer. 

For the past decade, the Congress has paid a heavy political price in Andhra and Telangana for its role in the bifurcation of the Telugu-speaking states It is only towards end-2023 that the Congress managed to bounce back in Telangana, and it is now hoping to regain a part of the ground it lost to the YSR Congress.

It was the tragic death of Y S Rajasekhara Reddy that proved disastrous for the Congress. It lost an extremely popular leader who had stoutly stalled the call for a separate Telangana. The party also failed to handle the aspirations of the untested Jagan Reddy, who was keen to succeed his father in office. A combination of inept management resulted in the formation of YSR Congress Party. 

By pitching Sharmila, the Congress is attempting to claw back by promoting the daughter of Rajasekhara Reddy and gain traction through sympathy. Sibling rivalry in politics is not new and  the Congress found a lieutenant from the family who can attract Congress voters who drifted toward YSRCP and are now unhappy with the decade-old Reddy government. In the last Andhra polls, Congress drew a blank. By appointing Sharmila as AP Congress chief, the party stands to gain.  

Since the formation of YSRCP, strong support for Jagan Reddy from mother Y S Vijayamma and sister Sharmila was crucial in building the party. It withstood turbulence when Jagan Reddy got enmeshed in a CBI case and was imprisoned. During that tumultuous phase, Sharmila worked tirelessly and undertook padayatra to keep the party flag flying and the morale of its cadres high.

The sibling equation changed when after the start of his second term  in power in 2019, Jagan Reddy consolidated his grip on the party. Sharmila was literally made to walk the plank and forced to build her political career in Telangana, a state where peoples’ sentiments do not favour the Rajasekhara Reddy clan.

After victories in Karnataka and Telangana, the Congress finds itself with a chance to mark its presence in the AP assembly. As things stand, the incumbent Reddy government faces a challenge from Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP, which is  working with the Jana Sena Party of Pawan Kalyan, brother of film-star and former Union Minister Chiranjeevi. 

In the caste matrix, TDP’s Kamma community support base and Jana Sena’s Kapu community base together form a potent combination against the Reddy community.

Over the years, Naidu’s dalliance with the BJP resulted in erosion of minority support. It is here that the Congress can hope to become a catch-all party. The sullen traditional Congress supporters who shifted to Jagan Reddy’s party now have an option to back the Sharmila-led Congress.

Yet, the road ahead will be bumpy for Sharmila and the Congress. After a decade in the wilderness and absence of effective leaders, the party’s organisation is nowhere what it used to be. 

The party is plagued by intense factional pulls and the organisation will require resources, financial and personnel, to match the political opponents’ scale and bandwidth.

Can Sharmila bring about a change? For one, this young politician has demonstrated her grit on more than one occasion. It was during her brother’s incarceration that she undertook a padayatra which propelled the party towards pole position. Then, in Telangana, she undertook another walkathon to build an atmosphere against the then K Chandrasekhara Rao government. 

Of course, ambition to merge her YSR Telangana party with the Congress ahead of the November assembly polls were torpedoed by the state Congress leadership, which anticipated a backlash. In a change of strategy, instead of contesting Telangana polls, she backed the Congress
and bargained for entry in Andhra Pradesh.

Sibling/family rivalry in politics is not unknown. Since the 1980s, the Scindia family in Madhya Pradesh has had mother/son, brother/sisters in opposite political camps, just as former Chief Minister Digvijay Singh found his brother Lakshman Singh cross over to the BJP at one time.

Yet, the Reddy brother-sister tussle will be of a different kind and the Congress has found a lieutenant from the family who can also bring together workers who were loyal to it and become a uniting factor.

While Jagan Reddy remains the front-runner, the Congress under Sharmila can hope to catch up with the backing of tested leaders of Karnataka and Telangana, where the Congress has governments, blunting the BJP’s decade-old quest of “Congress-Mukt Bharat”.  

(The writer is a senior journalist based in New Delhi)