YSR Telangana Party Leader Sharmila Joins Congress

NEW DELHI: Y.S. Sharmila, the daughter of the late Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, joined the Congress and merged her YSR Telangana Party with it.

The Congress had been negotiating with Sharmila over the past one year and she was scheduled to join the party at a rally in Hyderabad in September. “Negotiations could not be finished in time,” a senior leader said.

Her entry will help the Congress stake claim to Dr Rajasekhar Reddy’s legacy who died in a helicopter accident in 2008 during his second term.
Sharmila joined the Congress in the presence of party chief Mallikarjun Kharge and former party president Rahul Gandhi. She later met Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi who welcomed her in the party fold.

Lauding the Congress, and calling her entry to the party  as a “homecoming,” Sharmila said it was the largest and “most secular” party in the country as it unwaveringly served all communities and unites all sections of people.

Describing her father as a legendary leader of the Telugu people, she said: “Today, it would give him great joy that his daughter is following in his footsteps and is going to be a part of the Congress.” She said it was her father's dream to see Rahul Gandhi as prime minister and she would be happy to contribute to it.

She said Rahul Gandhi has won the confidence of the people with his Bharat Jodo Yatra and that also led to the party's victory in Karnataka.

Sharmila during her joining had raised the issue of ethnic violence in Manipur, and said “as a Christian it pained me that such cruelty took place in Manipur.”

She said 2,000 churches were vandalised and 60,000 people became homeless in the state. “That kind of cruelty is something that I have not been able to digest even to this day. That struck me that this is what will happen if a secular party is not in power,” she said.