Y S Sharmila interview: ‘PM Modi has done nothing for Andhra special status … BJP, TDP, YSRCP all non-performers’

Following a brief stint in Telangana, Y S Sharmila, the younger sister of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, returned to Andhra as the state Congress chief last year and is making her poll debut from the family bastion of Kadapa in the Lok Sabha elections. She will take on her cousin, the YSRCP’s sitting MP Y S Avinash Reddy.

In an interview toThe Indian Express, Sharmila speaks about the challenge of heading the Congress in a state where now it has little presence, her campaign, and the Congress’s prospects in Andhra Pradesh. Excerpts:

Fabulous, we are getting an amazing response.

It is across the state. People are realising that it is only the Congress that is standing by them, though they also know that the Congress is very weak right now… I should say that we are slowly gaining traction.

There was a need when I went there as a tyrant was ruling Telangana. It was important to bring his government down and I played my part in it by undertaking a 3,800-km padayatra to sharpen the anti-incumbency against him. However, simultaneously the Congress also grew due to Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, electoral success in neighbouring Karnataka and Revanth Reddy’s hard work. It was important for me to step down there as we did not want to split the Congress’s vote bank.

After I joined the Congress, the party requested me to go to Andhra as nobody here was fighting for the state’s special category status. I felt it was important that someone came here and used the Congress platform to bring back its past glory.

Andhra is in a very peculiar condition because of which, even the bitterness of the bifurcation appears as a minor problem. But thanks to the 10 years that have already passed by, people are realising the