Sharmila, the daughter of Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and sister of AP Chief Minister Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, had a 30-minute meeting with Sonia Gandhi. Sharmila’s efforts to join the Congress party began when she discussed the issue with Karnataka Deputy CM D K Shivakumar, who is a family friend of YSR. There have been speculations that Sharmila will join the Congress party and become the chief of AP Congress. However, she had not confirmed anything about her moves to join the Congress.
It is now being discussed why Sharmila wants to focus on Telangana instead of showing her strength in AP. She was the star campaigner for Jaganmohan Reddy and had received a good response from the people in Andhra Pradesh. It was also reported that many in Telangana Congress were not positive in recommending her name to the party high command. Sharmila had demanded about 20 seats as a pre-condition to merge her party, but the TPCC is not ready to part with so many seats for a new entrant.
The Congress has not made any official statement regarding Sharmila’s plan of joining or merging her party with them. The Congress is preparing for the upcoming Assembly elections in Telangana and aims to dethrone the ruling Bharath Rashtra Samithi (BRS) led by K. Chandrashekar Rao.
