IYeduguri Sandinthi Vijayalakshmi, popularly known as YS Vijayamma, mother of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, suddenly on Friday suddenly announced to quit her son’s Yuvajan Shramik Rythu Congress Party and join hands with her daughter. Now she has become active in Telangana politics.
Although Vijayamma is the honorary president of her son-run YSRCP, she announced that she would now actively support her daughter YS Sharmila Reddy, who recently launched the Yuvajana Shramik Rythu Telangana Party (YSRTP) in Hyderabad.
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He said, ‘When Jagan needed my help, I helped him. Now Sharmila needs my help,” declared Vijayalakshmi on the birth anniversary of her late husband YS Rajasekhara Reddy, the 14th Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh whose sudden death in 2009 paved the way for the creation of Telangana on 2 June 2014 . What did Vijayamma not do? He says that his entry into Telangana (through his daughter’s party) will add another dimension to Telangana politics.
The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) is said to have dominated the state after winning two elections after the creation of Telangana. But with the third assembly election of 2024, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is now gearing up to capture the state. The BJP is already in control of Karnataka and its victory in Telangana will have a wider and wider impact in South India.
It is too early to predict how many seats the combination of Vijayamma and Sharmila can manage in Telangana. However, going by son Jagan’s strategy in Andhra Pradesh, it is fair to say that the mother-daughter duo wants to target the votes of Other Backward Classes (OBCs), minorities and Dalits. This will definitely dent the votes TRS gets in Telangana. And this will benefit BJP.
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Sharmila had started her party with the stated objective of taking on the TRS. But even after a year, he has not got much success. His mother’s entry will certainly give him more firepower – and it will benefit the BJP – albeit indirectly. Vijayamma’s entry will strengthen the opposition vote in Telangana and wipe out the existing vote base of the ruling TRS, which could be good news for the BJP.
Vijayamma was seen as a housewife when her husband lived, but after YSR’s sudden death in 2009, she contested and won the assembly election for the first time from Pulivendula in Andhra Pradesh. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, he unsuccessfully contested from Visakhapatnam.
But his daughter, firebrand Sharmila traveled 3000 kms in Andhra Pradesh. With Jagan in jail, it seemed that she would be the first player of YSR Congress. But later, she moved to Telangana, wagging her tail. Some analysts said there was no good rapport between Sharmila and her brother Jagan—who had been released from jail and is now the chief minister of the state—so it was a move to keep them apart.
Though the move to create Telangana was widely supported across the state, many have recently become wary of the TRS, as Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao’s family dominates everything. Furthermore, while the TRS government is actively bringing in investments (including hi-tech investments in information technology and frontier sectors), people are not very happy with the government’s poor performance in other sectors.
G Ramakrishna, an old resident of Hyderabad, says, “Whether the performance of the state government is poor or not, they are already in power for two terms, and hence a significant section of the electorate wants change.” “The BJP wants to secure the conversion of votes, and moreover, if the Vijayamma and Sharmila outfits can split the TRS votes, nothing can be better than this,” he said.
Kingshuk Nag was the former Resident Editor of The Times of India, Hyderabad. He has authored ten books including Battleground Telangana, which deals with the formation of the state. He tweeted @NagKingshuk. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)