Since Independence, Andhra has been predominantly ruled by two dominant castes — Reddy and Kamma — that constitute 5-8 percent of the population.
From left: N Chandrababu Naidu, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, YS Sharmila, and D Purandeswari. (Supplied)
With YS Sharmila being inducted into the Congress, the upcoming elections in Andhra Pradesh have turned into a family affair, with four key parties being led by members of two prominent families and communities.
The TDP is led by actor-turned-politician NT Rama Rao’s son-in-law Chandrababu Naidu, and the BJP chief in the state is NTR’s daughter Daggubati Purandeswari.
On the other side, the YSRCP is led by the late chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy’s son YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, and the Congress is now likely to be led by YSR’s daughter YS Sharmila.
The key polarised parties — the ruling YSRCP and TDP as the principal Opposition — are relying on the legacies of YSR and NTR, respectively.
Meanwhile, the daughters of these late leaders — YS Sharmila and Daggubati Purandeswari — leading the two national parties, also face the challenge of claiming and upholding the legacies of their fathers.
“In our country, linguism is only another name for communalism. Take Andhra. There are two major communities spread over the linguistic area. They are either the Reddys or the Kammas. They hold all the land, all the offices, all the business.”
– Ambedkar, BR, 1955, Thoughts on Linguistic States, Ramkrishna Printing Press, Bombay, pp. 34-5.
Andhra Pradesh, the first state formed on linguistic grounds in 1953, witnessed the merging of Telangana in 1956.
Ambedkar’s words from 1955 find resonance in the 2024 political landscape of Andhra Pradesh.
For over 75 years since Independence, political power in the state has been predominantly held by two dominant castes — the Reddys and the Kammas — that constitute 5-8 percent of the population.
From 1956 to date, the Reddys held the chief minister position 14 times (13 from the Congress, one from the YSRCP), and the Kammas seven times (NTR and Chandrababu Naidu together six times), and a Dalit, Brahmin, Vaishya, and Velama each from the Congress.
Until 1982, the political landscape was marked by conflict between the Reddys and Kammas. The Congress was led by the Reddys, and the Kammas leant towards the Communists.
The prominence of the Reddys in the Congress could be seen from the people the party appointed to the top political posts in the state.
This was when a popular actor hailing from the Kamma community embarked on a political career, giving wings for the community to aspire for power.
Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao floated a political party named the Telugu Desam in 1982, and led it to victory in 1983.
NTR’s popularity in his films and political entrance were backed by the Kamma community, and it extended to various businesses.
Media baron Ramoji Rao, a prominent Kamma personality who owns the influential newspaper Eenadu, played a key role.
Meanwhile, the Reddys in Congress were chalking out the plan to return to power. However, TDP’s brand of politics gradually turned into a familial battle for power, with internal aspirations leading the way.
NTR faced a coup in 1984, orchestrated by Nadendla Bhaskara Rao — a minister in his own Cabinet and the same community — with the support of the then-Governor Ramlal.
He reclaimed power after a 31-day struggle, marching against Indira Gandhi in Delhi to expose the plot. He then went through the Assembly elections in 1984 and secured the people’s mandate again.
However, he lost the 1989 elections to the Congress, led by Marri Chenna Reddy — another prominent Reddy leader.
With efforts and mass campaigns, NTR also won the 1994 elections, but he faced another coup — this time not from his community but from family members, led by his son-in-law Nara Chandrababu Naidu.
The family members were unhappy with NTR’s decision to marry Lakshmi Parvathi, a woman half his age who was already married. NTR had 12 children — eight sons and four daughters — with his first wife Basavatarakam.
Chandrababu married Bhuvaneshwari — one of NTR’s four daughters from his first marriage — and was in the Congress before NTR entered politics.
NTR family (Nandamuri website)
In a surprise move, he seized power from NTR in a coup in the middle of 1995. He gathered MLAs supporting him at the popular Viceroy Hotel.
NTR was humiliated after he received slippers from the dissenters when he went to visit the MLAs. He had only 28 of the 219 TDP MLAs with him.
Five months later, NTR died due to a heart attack. Chandrababu, with his loyal Kamma clout, retained control of the TDP and won two more Assembly elections. This marked the beginning of self-styled politics with a family legacy.
Throughout the campaign against NTR when he was in power, the Naidu camp portrayed Lakshmi Parvathi as a villain.
Eenadu, too, carried cartoons and articles portraying NTR as being more controlled by his wife and less attentive to the public.
NTR enjoyed mass popularity for his roles in popular films and initiatives in politics such as Janata clothes, pucca houses, farmers’ welfare, and ₹2 per kg rice. The TDP led by Naidu still relies on these popular schemes.
NTR expressed his disappointment over the revolt backed by his family members, stating, “It was Chandrababu who mocked democracy by dethroning me despite I winning the people’s mandate. He persuaded my family and others to revolt. Many who are not my family supported me, but Naidu, who married my daughter, backstabbed me.”
Naidu justified the incident by stating that an “evil force” (Lakshmi Parvathi) tried to destroy the party and the state, and he had to revolt and split the party to protect the state.
Out of the five elections won by the TDP since its inception, only Chandrababu Naidu and NTR from one family, barring the 31-day coup by N Bhaskara Rao, have been the chief ministers so far.
The attempt to keep the TDP under Naidu’s leadership faced opposition from other family members — particularly NTR’s elder daughter Purandeswari, her husband Daggubati Venkateswara Rao, and NTR’s elder son, the late Harikrishna.
Lakshmi Parvathi formed her own party — the NTR Telugu Desam Party (Lakshmi Parvathi) — but it failed to gain traction among voters.
After years of political hibernation, she joined the YSRCP — floated by YS Jagan Mohan Reddy in March 2011.
NTR marries Lakshmi Parvathi (Supplied)
Harikrishna, though reportedly supportive of Naidu during the TDP’s internal crisis, resigned from the Cabinet he was a part of and launched his own party — the Anna Telugu Desam — in 1998.
However, the party faced a debacle in the 1999 elections, with most of its candidates losing deposits.
After a brief re-entry into politics as a Rajya Sabha member from the TDP, Harikrishna opposed the bifurcation of the Telugu state and eventually withdrew from active public life, focusing on films.
He passed away in a car accident in 2018. His son Jr NTR, who campaigned for the TDP in 2009, is now in films and has been inactive in politics, while his daughter is still active in the TDP.
On the other hand, Purandeswari and her husband Daggubati, who was considered number two in the party after NTR in the early days but supported Naidu during the coup, decided to part ways with him when Naidu seemingly sidelined the Daggubati family.
In a surprising move, the Daggubati family joined the Congress before the 2004 elections. Daggubati won the Assembly election, and Purandeswari won the Lok Sabha election — both on Congress tickets.
Daggubati released a book in 2009 and admitted that he had committed a mistake by participating in the dethroning of NTR — in what came to be known as the “Viceroy coup”.
When Telangana was formed in 2014, Purandeswari joined the BJP and contested the Lok Sabha elections but lost, while Daggubati quit politics.
In 2019, Purandeswari contested on a BJP ticket again, while her husband joined Naidu’s rival Jagan’s party — the YSRCP — but both lost the elections.
Since then, Daggubati has been inactive in politics, while Purandeswari was recently appointed the Andhra BJP chief.
While her entry initially seemed to complicate Naidu’s efforts to rekindle the TDP’s alliance with the BJP, she has not weighed in on it, leaving the decision in the hands of the party’s central leadership.
With Chandrababu Naidu’s rise to power, the polarisation intensified with his former colleague in the Congress, and the Kammas leant towards the TDP.
YSR’s image makeover campaigns, like a padayatra, played a crucial role in garnering public support against Chandrababu Naidu, who was perceived as favouring industrialists while YSR positioned himself as the champion of labourers.
In 2004, the Congress — led by YSR — successfully halted Naidu’s tryst with power, marking a significant shift in community politics.
During his tenure, YSR implemented various welfare schemes, including Aarogya Sri health cards for the poor, water supply to drought-hit areas, and the distribution of pucca houses.
His leadership earned him the image of a dignified man with a strong Reddy-community clout.
YSR in his Padayatra (Supplied)
However, YSR’s untimely demise in a chopper crash in September 2009 led to a power struggle within the Congress, with his son Jagan and loyalists pushing for his succession.
The Congress high command, displeased with Jagan’s ambitions, refused to endorse him as YSR’s successor, prompting him to break away and form a new political party.
In December 2010, Jagan announced the formation of the Yuvajana Shramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP), marking the beginning of the race to claim YSR’s legacy. He justified his departure by accusing the Congress of injustice to YSR’s family.
In 2011, a CBI investigation was ordered into the alleged accumulation of wealth by Jagan during his father’s tenure as Andhra Pradesh chief minister.
The move was based on a petition filed by P Shankar Rao, the state textile minister in the Congress Cabinet, and Kinjarapu Yerran Naidu, a former TDP MP and close aide of TDP supremo Chandrababu Naidu.
This investigation further fuelled the rift between Jagan and the Congress, leading to a new chapter in Andhra Pradesh politics.
The CBI arrested Jagan on 27 May, 2012. Throughout the 16 months when Jagan was in jail, his sister Sharmila embarked on a padayatra similar to that of her father.
This was also when Sharmila gained prominence. She and her mother YS Vijayamma began handling the party meetings and rallies, spreading the message of how the Congress victimised their beloved late chief minister YSR’s son.
Sharmila undertook an arduous padayatra of 3,112 kilometres across Andhra Pradesh in October 2012, titled the Maro Praja Prasthanam (another peoples’ march), till her brother Jagan took over — if and when he would be released from jail.
The name was taken from her father’s iconic padayatra before his first stint as Andhra Pradesh chief minister starting in 2004.
Jagan walked out of jail on bail 16 months later. However, the TDP came to power in a bifurcated Andhra Pradesh in 2014 despite the YSRCP’s best efforts.
Undeterred, Sharmila continued batting for the YSRCP, consoling 310 families across Telangana in 56 days during her Odarpu Yatra — spanning 8,510 kilometres — in January 2016.
With her brother YS Jagan shifting the focus to Andhra Pradesh, she toured the entire state as a star campaigner, rallying against TDP supremo Chandrababu Naidu with “Bye Bye Babu” slogans.
After a prolonged struggle and continuous public mass contact programmes, the YSR family saw success with a victory of 151 seats out of 175 in 2019.
YS Sharmila joined YS Jagan and wished for his Padayatra in 2017. (Supplied)
However, the siblings had a fallout within a year. Reportedly, YS Sharmila was not accommodated in the party for which she had worked for a decade.
There were reportedly also issues related to asset-sharing that fuelled the discord.
She started her own party — the YSRTP — in 2021 and embarked on a padayatra across Telangana, leaving the Andhra space to her brother.
She found herself at loggerheads with former Telangana chief minister and BRS chief K Chandrashekar Rao, with whom her brother in Andhra shared cordial relations.
Incidentally, Jagan met KCR on 4 January — the very day she joined the Congress.
Additionally, Sharmila was also the secret CBI witness in the murder case of her uncle YS Vivekananda Reddy, a former minister.
She claimed that political manoeuvring to ensure the YSRCP’s Kadapa MP ticket for her cousin YS Avinash Reddy led to the brutal murder of her uncle in March 2019, in the midst of election campaigning.
In contrast, Jagan backed their cousin — the Kadapa MP — in the Assembly and dismissed allegations by the TDP against him.
Sharmila eventually expressed interest in joining the Telangana unit of the Congress.
However, as reported by South First earlier, Congress suggested that she join it in Andhra Pradesh rather than in Telangana.
They reasoned that if she joined the Telangana unit of the Congress, it could be used by KCR in favour of the BRS.
Finally, with YS Sharmila joining the Andhra Pradesh Congress, she is expected to lay claim to YSR’s legacy, which Jagan relies upon to quite an extent after his fallout with the Congress.
This is how four parties — led by two families — are at war ahead of the 2024 elections in Andhra Pradesh.
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