Andhra Pradesh and Telangana: The year of the rebellious kin

In the Telugu-speaking states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, politics has for quite some time been dynastic, patriarchal and ‘filmi’.

Sons are natural heirs to the throne while daughters are, by and large, barred from entering the ring.

With two rebellious daughters — Y.S. Sharmila in Andhra Pradesh and K. Kavitha in Telangana — struggling to break these stereotypes, the scene has been quite riveting. While their motives and circumstances vary, the crux of their fight is the same: to challenge gender bias, be it with regard to power or property.

Kavitha’s recent rebellion and swift suspension from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) by her father and party patriarch K. Chandrashekar Rao (better known as KCR) triggered a political storm. Her exit capped years of a simmering power struggle within the family that has dominated Telangana politics ever since the formation of the state in 2014.

What precipitated the fracas was when Kavitha accused her cousins — former minister T. Harish Rao and former Rajya Sabha MP Santosh Rao — of corruption and betrayal. Both are considered close confidants of KCR, and Kavitha dubbed the inner circle they belong to a “ring of devils”. She even accused them of colluding with Congress chief minister A. Revanth Reddy to defame her father and order a CBI case against him on apparently trumped-up charges in the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project case.

While her cousins are in the crossfire, the real target of her anger and frustration is her estranged brother K.T. Rama Rao (KTR), the chosen successor to KCR’s political legacy. Ever since KTR was anointed the party working president in 2018, Kavitha has been demanding a bigger role for herself. Their sibling rivalry deepened when she made it clear that she would not accept her older brother as her leader.

Kavitha, who was arrested and jailed briefly last year for her alleged role in the Delhi liquor scam, is peeved that the party leadership did not back her fully during those difficult times.

Isolated both within the family and the party, she is preparing to tread her own political path, even while pledging complete loyalty to her father. There is speculation in political circles that she might float a political outfit to fight for ‘social justice and the empowerment of weaker sections’.

For his part, KCR is in no mood to make up with his rebellious daughter, who has, as of now, not publicly attacked her brother.

In Andhra Pradesh, on the other hand, Sharmila has been engaged in a direct, no-holds-barred fight against her brother and former chief minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy.

As state Congress president, Sharmila ran an aggressive campaign against YSR and played a role in the defeat of the YSR Congress (YSRCP) government in the 2024 elections. Though the Congress under her leadership did not win a seat, her campaign considerably damaged Jagan’s reputation.

Once comrades-in-arms in the YSRCP scheme of things — since its inception in 2011 — Sharmila and Jagan fell out soon after the party came to power in the 2019 assembly polls. Jagan refused to give Sharmila any position in the party. Simultaneously, the fight over property intensified.

Sharmila openly accused Jagan of ignoring her political contributions. She had held the fort for the YSRCP when Jagan was in jail for quid pro quo cases filed by the CBI. During her brother’s 16 month-incarceration, Sharmila undertook a 3,000 km padayatra that paved the way for Jagan to become the chief minister.

The party’s 2019 electoral success, she believes, was thanks to her.

After a failed political tryst in Telangana, however, Sharmila announced the merger of her YSR Telangana Party with the Congress and returned to Andhra as the state Congress chief.

Last year, she unsuccessfully contested the Kadapa Lok Sabha election against cousin and YSRCP candidate Y.S. Avinash Reddy.

Since Jagan’s defeat in last year’s assembly polls, though, tensions within the YSR family flared up further. Sharmila accused her brother of trying to usurp her rightful share of the family’s wealth. The siblings are currently locked in a bitter legal battle before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) over transfer of shares in a power company owned by the family.

YSR’s widow Y.S. Vijayamma has steadfastly stood by her daughter in this ongoing family feud.