YS Sharmila sleeps in Congress office to avoid 'house arrest'
YS Sharmila Reddy, the sister of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy and state Congress chief, spent Wednesday night at the party's Vijayawada office to avoid a house arrest attempt. This comes ahead of the "Chalo Secretariat" protest organized by the Congress to address issues faced by unemployed youth and students in the southern state. A video showing Sharmila resting on a cot in the office has since gone viral.
Video showing Sharmila sleeping in Congress office
Sharmila criticizes Jagan's failure to address youth issues
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Sharmila expressed disappointment in her brother's failure to address the concerns of youth, the unemployed, and students over the past five years. "If we call for protest on behalf of the unemployed, will you try to keep us under house arrest? Don't we have the right to protest in a democracy?" she wrote on X. She accused the state government of attempting to suppress their movement and hide their incompetence.
Heavy police presence and criticism from Congress leaders
In another post, Sharmila alleged that thousands of police officers were placed around Congress workers with iron fences put up, effectively holding them hostage. Lok Sabha MP Manickam Tagore also accused CM Jagan of having what he called a dictatorial attitude. Meanwhile, the Andhra Pradesh Congress committee headquarters in Vijayawada is under tight police surveillance following the call to march to the Secretariat.
'Chalo Secretariat' march begins in Vijayawada
Sharmila recently joined Congress
Sharmila joined the Congress on January 4 in Delhi, just days after the Congress won the Telangana Assembly elections. She also merged her party, Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Telangana Party—which she founded after an apparent fallout with her brother—with the Congress. Within weeks of joining the Congress, she was appointed as the party's state chief. As Congress chief, she has accused Jagan of neglecting development, citing a sharp increase in atrocities against Dalits and illegal sand mining by the mafia.
Sharmila hits out at Jagan
She also criticized Jagan for not registering a protest against the Centre for denying special category status to Andhra Pradesh. To note, Jagan is facing multiple charges, including criminal conspiracy, accepting a bribe, and corruption, among others. He was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 2012 in an alleged disproportionate assets case. But even after nearly 12 years, trials have yet to begin in any of the 11 cases registered by the CBI in August 2021.
