YS Sharmila, YSR Telangana Party Founder and AP CM's Sister, Likely to Join Congress This Week

This development comes weeks after Congress bagged a massive win in the Telangana assembly elections and removed from power K Chandrashekar Rao-led Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), a rival of YS Sharmila.

Speculation were rife before the Telangana polls also over YS Sharmila's possible merger with the Congress, with some reports saying that Sharmila would either disband her party - which she had floated in 2021 - and join the Grand Old party or merge with it.   

Reports cited sources as saying that Sharmila, daughter of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister and Congress leader YS Rajasekhar Reddy, may be given a key position in Congress, with an eye on reviving Congress in Andhra Pradesh, where polls are slated to take place next year alongside the Lok Sabha election. 

If and when the merger of YS Sharmila happens, a member of the YSR family will be directly taking on the YSRCP-led by Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.

YS Sharmila first made headlines in 2012 when she joined her mother, YS Vijayamma, to campaign for the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) in Andhra Pradesh in the absence of YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, who in May that year was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on embezzlement charges.

This happened when Telangana had not been carved out of Andhra Pradesh. Amid the escalating statehood movement, Sharmila's brother Jagan Mohan Reddy had broken away from the Congress and established the YSR Congress Party (YSCRP) in 2011. Joining him were 18 MLAs, and a Congress MP also resigned, triggering a series of bypolls. While Jagan Reddy was in custody due to corruption allegations in 2012, his mother YS Sharmila along with their mother YS Vijayamma spearheaded the campaign, leading the YSCRP's sweeping victory in the bypolls.

In February 2021, Sharmila said that she held political disagreements with her brother and months later announced her party.