A merger that could bring instability

The situation in Telangana continues to be fluid, and it remains to be seen which party, the BJP or Sharmila with Congress, will be able to harness the anti-incumbent sentiment

On July 8, 2021, the birth anniversary of the late Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, the charismatic chief minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh, his daughter, Sharmila, launched a new party — the YSR Telangana Party (YSRTP). Her brother Jagan Mohan Reddy, chief minister of neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, was not present at the launch, signalling his disapproval of his sister’s initiative. Their mother was by her daughter’s side. In interviews, Sharmila made it clear that for the moment, her political work was going to be limited to Telangana. In other words, she was not competing with her brother for turf.

Very likely on July 8, 2023, exactly 24 months later, her party will formally merge with the Congress. Sharmila has already had a meeting with Karnataka Congress supremo D K Shivakumar. With elections to the 119-seat Telangana Assembly to take place later this year, this move is expected to create instability in the Congress.

The chief of the Telangana unit of the Congress, Revanth Reddy, and Sharmila have already exchanged barbs. Sharmila called Mr Reddy a “leader on rent”. “When YSR was alive, Revanth was in the TDP and, to appease his boss, Chandrababu Naidu, he used to abuse YSR,” Sharmila said publicly. To this Mr Reddy has responded that Sharmila is from Andhra Pradesh, not Telangana, and she would never be allowed to head the state Congress.

The merger may mean nothing. Sharmila’s capacity to add to the Congress vote share and/or seats is as yet untested. In the 2018 Assembly polls, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (now Bharat Rashtra Samithi), led by K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), won 88 seats and formed the government in Telangana, defeating both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress. The BJP won one seat and its vote share was just 7 per cent. But in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP managed to win four, including Nizamabad, where KCR’s daughter K Kavitha was defeated. It also pulled off a shock victory in the Dubbaka bypoll in November 2020, fanning its ambitions of becoming a significant player in Telangana. Elections for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation a month later underlined this. The Union home minister and the UP chief minister campaigned in this election, a municipal one. The BJP’s performance was spectacular. The Congress performed below par.

But between then and now, there’s been a change. Despite all the welfare measures by the KCR government, anti-incumbency is on the rise. The vein has been tapped by ministers who were dropped by KCR from the government and are now negotiating with the Congress. The Karnataka Assembly victory has added to the belief that the Congress may be down, but it is not out. This is a big change. Between 2018 and 2021, 12 out of 19 Congress MLAs defected to join the BRS. Now it is reverse migration. Khammam is scheduled to host a big public meeting in July with Rahul Gandhi in attendance, and there some senior BRS leaders will join the party.

The central question is: What will Sharmila bring to the table? The powerful Reddy community of Telangana backed YSR unreservedly, especially his declaration that he would not allow the bifurcation of the state. They lost and later, when the state was divided, many shifted to the BJP, especially from Mahbubnagar district. G Kishan Reddy, a minister with cabinet rank in the Central government, is an aspirant for caste leadership in Telangana. However, his hold is limited to some pockets in Hyderabad. The BJP is led by Bandi Sanjay, MP from Karimnagar. But although the rank and cadre view him as a fiery leader, the entire state unit does not see him as a consensus-maker. This has caused some BJP leaders to leave the party as well: With some going to the BRS, but many to the Congress.

Sharmila comes from a family of practising Christians. Her husband, Anil, is an evangelist. However small, the Christian community in Telangana knows her and respects the family. Although she has never fought an election, when her brother was in jail on corruption charges in 2013, it was Sharmila who held the fort and campaigned in his defence via padayatras. When she launched her party two years ago, she may have felt she deserved a bigger public role, which had been organisational and behind the scenes. Now it appears she’s had her fill of that and is ready to cast her lot with a bigger party. Whether this move will satisfy the ambition she nurtures is not clear. As the BJP knows only too well, mergers are tricky and the party is banking on resultant discontent in the Congress. The Congress leadership will want the party to pull in one direction. And it doesn’t have a leader tall enough who can address the ambitions of both Revanth and Sharmila.

In all, the situation in Telangana is fluid and needs to be watched. Although the BRS is projecting supreme confidence, who will be able to tap anti-incumbency  — the BJP or Sharmila plus the Congress — remains to be seen.