Pulivendula, Kadapa: For the second time since Y.S. Rajasekhara (YSR) Reddy’s demise in 2009, the fight for his political legacy within the family is out in the open, on the streets of Pulivendula and Kadapa, the YSR family bastions in the arid Rayalaseema region.
The two most prominent siblings in Andhra Pradesh – Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy and Y.S. Sharmila — have made the Kadapa Lok Sabha election the most keenly watched contest in the state, as they stand resolutely by their cousins Y.S. Avinash Reddy and Dr Suneetha Narreddy, in the CBI probed five-year-old murder case of their uncle Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy, also known as Viveka.
Sharmila, the APCC chief, is the Congress candidate from Kadapa “seeking justice” for Suneetha, while Avinash, the sitting MP, is renominated by Jagan from Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP).
Suneetha, daughter of Viveka, has been fighting in the courts, demanding justice in the case, in which Avinash was made an accused by the CBI last year reportedly for hatching the plot, along with his father Y.S. Bhaskar Reddy, to kill Viveka.
Pulivendula is the assembly constituency of Jagan, and is one of the seven such segments of the Kadapa Lok Sabha which also he won twice earlier — in 2009 from the Congress and in the 2011 bypoll after exiting the Congress.
Both YSR and his younger brother Viveka served as Pulivendula MLA and Kadapa MPs before Jagan, the times when the Yeduguri Sandinti family was firmly one.
However, in 2011 while he formed the YSRCP and now, as the CM, Jagan is challenged on the home-turf by his blood relatives.
While Viveka had unsuccessfully contested against Jagan’s mother Y.S. Vijayamma in the 2011 Pulivendula bypoll, within two months of YSRCP formation, Sharmila is in fray in the Kadapa general election now against Jagan’s nominee Avinash.
Andhra Pradesh votes for its assembly and Lok Sabha simultaneously on 13 May.
Both Viveka then and Sharmila now are nominees of Jagan’s adversary Congress, which was on the decline with the YSRCP’s rise and has been in ruins since 2014 following its decision to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh.
Notably, while Viveka parted ways after YSR’s demise to remain in the Congress, served as a minister and later in 2012 joined Jagan, Sharmila went the opposite way.
Sharmila who, with her rallies, speeches statewide was instrumental in Jagan’s landslide victory in 2019, differed with her CM brother and formed YSR Telangana Party in 2021. She merged it with the Congress last year and was made the AP unit chief this January.
And now the 2019 Viveka murder is again becoming the poll-time talking point on the streets in Kadapa-Pulivendula, about 80 km apart, as the sensational incident just before the previous polls is being raked up by Sharmila and Suneetha in their poll campaigns.
Cousins Sharmila and Suneetha, born 17 days apart and who grew up together in Chennai, are in unison questioning, criticising Jagan for renominating Avinash for the Lok Sabha seat.
“Even as the CBI named Avinash an accused in the case, Jagan has been shielding him. You raised a hue and cry, calling it a murder attempt when struck by a small pebble, then how come a brutal murder with an axe was sought to be passed off as a heart attack,” Sharmila asked in a road show in Kadapa Saturday, after filing her nomination.
Her reference was to the stone-pelting on Jagan in Vijayawada and the initial media reports saying that Viveka died of heart attack.
Sharmila also questioned why Jagan became averse to the CBI probe which he had demanded as an opposition leader.
Sharing the stage with Sharmila atop a Congress AP Nyay Yatra campaign bus in the blazing Kadapa heat, Suneetha told the gathering that Avinash’s MP post was Viveka’s ‘biksham’ (alms).
The two cousins made the remarks unperturbed by the Kadapa district court orders last week restraining them and YSRCP opponents including TDP leaders Chandrababu Naidu, Lokesh, BJP and JSP leaders D. Purandeswari, Pawan Kalyan from making any adverse remarks in connection to the case.
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‘Murder is family matter, Sharmila not a factor’
Though the Viveka murder case has become a hot topic again in Kadapa-Pulivendula, people appear disinclined to vote on its basis. Even as they fondly remember Viveka as “a good leader, a gentleman,” the locals either appear detached or are brushing aside the alleged murder as “family matter.”
Sipping evening tea at a stall opposite the Congress office in Kadapa, near which Sharmila held her roadshow, Tirumala Reddy, an advocate supporting the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Surendranath Reddy, a farmer, backing the YSRCP are cohesive in their criticism of the Congress candidate’s approach.
“Besides targeting Jagan over uncle’s murder, that too after parting ways, Sharmila is not offering any vision for Kadapa development. It has been five years, there is no perceptible Viveka effect in the polls. The contest is between Jagan and Chandrababu, Sharmila is not a big factor here,” they both assert.
Nagaraju S., who runs a retail store nearby, says voters disillusioned with YSRCP’s Avinash and local YSRCP MLA Amjad Pasha would prefer the TDP.
In the narrow Prakash Nagar lanes off a bustling commercial street, K. Pravallika, a homemaker, dismisses the Viveka murder and brother-sister rivalry as Y.S. family internal problem as she reveals her family is a beneficiary of Jagan’s welfare schemes.
But there are some like Korivi Dhanunjay, a tax consultant in Kadapa, who opined that Jagan could have avoided renominating Avinash, who was granted an anticipatory bail in the case. “It would show some impact here,” he says.
However, in Pulivendula — the YS family hometown — the support for their MLA Jagan is indisputable, and locals appear somewhat sympathetic towards Avinash.
“As Jagan is busy as CM, Avinash is our go-to man for local needs and personal difficulties here in Pulivendula. He responds quickly to our problems, requests,” says a retired banker, while his acquaintance, a farmer from a nearby village, nods in agreement.
Locals say there is no drinking water problem now, and Pulivendula now boasts of a swanky bus station and a brand-new medical college and hospital etc – which have all come up in the last few years and named after YSR. The main market street is beautified with cobbled paths.
Mohammed Vali, who runs a tea stall near the statue of Potti Sriramulu, whose fast unto death led to creation of the first linguistic based state of Andhra in 1953, expresses gratitude to Avinash, who, he says, helped his son get a concession seat in a Karnataka engineering college.
However, despite themselves not committing a vote for Sharmila, many among those quoted above opined that the Congress candidate could garner some votes – especially that of Muslims, Christians and “YSR admirers, as she is also YSR’s bidda (daughter).”
“Despite his long association as MLA, MP and a respectable reputation, Viveka himself lost by about 80,000 votes to Vijayamma in the 2011 Pulivendula bypoll as Jagan successfully claimed his father’s political legacy. Yes, Sharmila is also YSR’s blood, but we don’t think Sharmila stands a chance against Jagan’s YSRCP,” the retired banker quoted above says.
YSR Kadapa district has a significant proportion of Muslim, SC, Christian population.
For Khaleel Pasha, a Muslim auto-driver in Kadapa and Devakumar Datla, a Dalit auto driver in Pulivendula, who voted for Jagan-anna the last two times, Viveka murder is “a YSR family internal issue” but say Sharmila will get some votes of their communities.
“Of course, as YSR’s daughter, Sharmila will attract some votes but they will just not be enough. TDP tacit support could brighten her victory chances,” a former minister from Kadapa, now retired from active politics, told ThePrint.
And, there are some like the banker-farmer who believe that Sharmila could later rejoin brother’s camp, like Viveka did before.
(Edited by Tony Rai)