YSR CONGRESS Party chief Jagan Mohan Reddy has made it official. “There is no love lost” between him and his sibling YS Sharmila, the former Andhra Pradesh chief minister has put down on pen and paper – marking what could be the end of the road for the brother-sister duo who once shared a deep bond. .
Jagan made the remark as part of his complaint before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) accusing Sharmila of usurping shares in a power company using their mother YS Vijaya Lakshmi’s (or Vijayamma’s) name.
Once, this would have seemed improbable. A little over a year apart in age, Jagan, almost 52, and Sharmila, 50, were very close growing up, spending festivals and holidays together, with their spouses and children as much a part of the festivities once they got married.
What came between the two was politics – specifically the attractively large legacy left by their late father and Congress stalwart YS Rajasekhara Reddy or YSR.
Ironically, at the start, having Sharmila by his side gave Jagan the kick-off he needed. Estranged from the Congress, he found himself slapped with a CBI case when he tried to claim his father’s legacy. In May 2012, the agency put him behind bars. It was Jagan’s wife YS Bharathi and sister Sharmila who then took up the fight on his behalf.
Sharmila first assumed charge of the bypoll for which Jagan was campaigning when arrested, and then in October 2012, set out on a padyatra in his support.
Foot marches had proved successful for YSR as well as Jagan in their political careers, and Sharmila covered nearly 3,000 km as part of her padyatra, from home village of Idupulapaya in YSR Kadapa district to Ichachapuram in Srikakulam. On September 23, 2013, Jagan was released from jail.
Ahead of the 2019 Assembly elections, Sharmila did a yatra again, covering around 1,500 km across Andhra over 11 days on a bus, seeking support for the YSRCP and Jagan.
The power pulls
Sources say the tensions began soon after Jagan rose to power with a huge majority of 153 of 175 seats in the Assembly elections. It was largely seen as a sympathy vote for YSR, who had died in a plane crash. But, to Sharmila’s dismay, she found that there was no space for her in the party created by Jagan in their father’s name, even in the organizational ranks.
Those in the Jagan camp say he always treated Sharmila as a kid sister, and doted on her, but that he never anticipated that she might have political ambitions of her own. “He did not think she would seek a political role even as he himself tried to reach the heights of YSR,” a relative said.
While their mother YS Vijayamma was the honorary president of the YSRCP, real power was concentrated in Jagan’s hands. As Sharmila made noises, and found support from Vijayamma, Jagan slowly elbowed out his mother as well.
An aide says that both the mother and daughter were surprised by Jagan’s reluctance to cede an inch in the party or power. Sharmila also hails from a political family. Her father, brother, uncle, nephew are in politics and even her mother got a chance to contest, but she was completely ignored,” points out the aide.
However, with Jagan turning his back, Sharmila could hardly hope to make any impact in the Andhra political field, which was crowded with not just the two big regional parties of the YSRCP and N Chandrababu Naidu-led TDP, but also the rising JanaSena Party. of actor-turned politician K Pawan Kalyan, besides the BJP and Congress.
The Telangana test
After biding time for nearly two years after Jagan became Andhra CM, Sharmila made her move in April 2021 when she suddenly surfaced at the family residence Lotus Pond in Hyderabad.
Sharmila made it clear that, with Andhra controlled by Jagan, she intended to test the political waters in Telangana, once part of the same state. On July 8 that year, the birth anniversary of YSR, she announced the launch of the ‘YSR Telangana Party (YSRTP)’, surrounded by hundreds of YSR supporters.
Jagan was not pleased, with the rift soon becoming a public spectacle after their mother Vijaya Lakshmi chose the YSRCP plenary to declare her resignation as honorary president of the party. While she wished Jagan all the success, she wanted to support Sharmila in her political foray, Vijaya Lakshmi said.
In October 2021, Sharmila launched yet another foot march, ‘Praja Prasthanam Yatra’, across 33 districts of Telangana. Her criticism of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (then Telangana Rashtra Samithi) leaders, and then CM K Chandrashekar Rao, invited her attacks by BRS workers, with her padyatra targeted several times. The state police even denied her permission to continue.
However, the padyatra was also an eye-opener, with Sharmila not drawing the crowds she expected even as her finances quickly depleted. She realized then that her promise to contest from several Assembly seats in Telangana would be hard to keep.
K Raghava Reddy, a former aide of Sharmila in Telangana, says her efforts at running the party drained her resources further. He says she also overestimated the “political vacuum” in Telangana.
As per the aide quoted above, Sharmila could not lay her hands either on some of the family assets due to her because of Jagan’s court cases delaying their division.
The Congress factor
Late last year, running out of options, Sharmila started reaching out to the Congress. This caused further friction with Jagan, who still has bitter memories of the days leading up to his exit from the Congress in November 2010, with the AICC leadership leaving him hanging and refusing the demand to make him CM after YSR’s demise. Jagan vowed at the time that he or his family would never have anything to do with the Congress again.
Sources say Jagan saw Sharmila’s move, while he was in the midst of a tough campaign for a second term and facing the joint might of TDP-BJP-JSP, as a betrayal. “Several family members tried to dissuade Sharmila from joining the Congress,” an aide says.
The Congress, on its part, forced a reportedly reluctant Sharmila to go toe-to-toe with Jagan, making her the Andhra PCC chief. This left her with little choice but to take him on. Family members claim Jagan still refrained from badmouthing Sharmila, even when he criticized the Congress leadership.
The Andhra results this May were eventually bad for both the siblings, with the Congress drawing a blank and the YSRCP decimated. The bad blood mounted.
The row now
Jagan has called the transfer of shares owned by him and his wife in Saraswati Power and Industries Ltd to mother Vijayamma as done “illegally” and “deceitfully”.
In a letter written to Sharmila, Jagan claimed that while he only harbored love and affection towards her, she had responded with actions that did not show “a shred of gratitude” towards him nor displayed the least regard for his well-being. “You have also made several untrue statements publicly and conducted actions that have not only been politically opposed to me, but are also blatantly untrue and have caused personal disrepute to me,” he wrote.
A member of Jagan’s office said, “These shares are not inherited assets, Jagan chose to give them (to his mother) out of love and affection. But the assets are under court attachment and cannot be transferred until cases against him are resolved. Knowing this, she (Sharmila) went ahead and illegally transferred the shares to her name.”
Sharmila’s office countered, saying: “What Jagan has said in the petition is false and misleading. Jagan had already given a gift deed to Vijayamma (their mother Vijaya Lakshmi), transferring all the shares in her name. Now, suspecting that Vijayamma may give them to his sister Sharmila, he is trying to get them back and deny the gift deed.”