A day before joining the Congress, YSR Telangana Party (YSRTP) leader YS Sharmila met her brother and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy in Amaravati on Wednesday, January 3, to invite him for her son’s engagement and wedding. On January 4, Sharmila merged her YSRTP with Congress and officially joined the national party in New Delhi in the presence of party president Mallikarjun Kharge and MP Rahul Gandhi.
After YSR’s death in a helicopter crash in 2009, Jagan had a fallout with Congress and started his own party, the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP). Since then, Sharmila has actively participated in public outreach on her brother's behalf, especially when Jagan was jailed in the disproportionate assets case in 2012, and later before the 2014 and 2019 Assembly elections. However, since then, differences have cropped up between the siblings. In 2021, Sharmila launched YSRTP in Telangana. While her mother Vijayamma resigned from YSRCP to support Sharmila, her brother Jagan remained absent, and the rift between them is said to have widened since then.
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On January 3, accompanied by her husband Anil Kumar, son Raja Reddy and other family members, Sharmila drove to the Chief Minister’s official residence at Tadepalli and presented him the first invitation card for Raja Reddy’s engagement and wedding. She is said to have spent about half-an-hour with her brother and sister-in-law Bharati.
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Sharmila, along with her family members, reached the Gannavaram Airport at Vijayawada by a special aircraft from Kadapa and then drove to her brother’s residence. Interestingly, Alla Rama Krishna Reddy, who recently resigned from YSRCP, and also quit as an MLA, accompanied Sharmila to Jagan's residence. Rama Krishna Reddy had earlier announced that he would join the Congress once Sharmila returns from Delhi.
Weeks before the Telangana elections, Sharmila reportedly attempted a merger with Congress but failed, purportedly due to resistance from some Telangana Congress leaders. She later announced that her party would contest from all the 119 Assembly constituencies. However, she later announced that she was stepping away from the poll race, stating that she did not want to split the anti-BRS vote and affect Congress’s chances of winning.
After Telangana Congress' victory, Sharmila is said to have now been offered a Rajya Sabha seat, or a position in the All India Congress Committee (AICC). However, Congress has yet to announce her role in the party, and whether she will play an active role in the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC), which would pit her directly against her brother Jagan. “You will get answers to all your queries in a day or two,” she had said while declining to answer any questions after meeting her brother.