AMARAVATI: All India Congress Committee (AICC) has appointed office-bearers of the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC). AICC President Mallikarjun Kharge approved the appointment of vice presidents, general secretaries, presidents of the district/city Congress committees and heads of various cells of the APCC.
The party named 13 vice-presidents, 37 general secretaries, 25 DCC presidents, and 10 City Congress committee presidents.
The vice presidents are Kota Sathyanarayana, Valiboyina Gurunadham, Sripathi Prakasam, K. Venugopal Reddy, M. Surya Nayak, Udatha Venakata Rao Yadav, K. Vinaya Kumar, M. Venkata Siva Prasad, K. Shivaji, S. Martin Luther, K. Srinivasu, Vegi Venkatesh and D. Rambhupal Reddy. The appointment of the APCC office-bearer came nearly eight months after Y. S. Sharmila Reddy was appointed the APCC president.
Sharmila led the party in the simultaneous elections to the state Assembly and Lok Sabha held in May. However, in the third consecutive election, the Congress party drew a blank in both the Assembly and Lok Sabha.
Mallikarjun Kharge on January 16 had appointed Sharmila as APCC president, a few days after she merged the YSR Telangana Party (YSRTP) with the Congress party.
Sharmila is the sister of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister and YSR Congress Party president Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and daughter of former chief minister late Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, who was popular as YSR. While joining Congress, Sharmila had recalled that her father YSR not only served the Congress party his entire life but also gave his life serving the Congress party.
Sharmila, who had actively campaigned for YSR Congress Party in the 2019 elections, felt sidelined by Jagan after the party came to power with a landslide victory.
In 2021, she entered politics in Telangana and floated the YSRTP.
However, she did not contest the recent Assembly elections in Telangana. She claimed that since Congress stood a chance of winning in Telangana, she graciously withheld YSRTP from contesting Assembly elections as she did not want to divide anti-KCR votes.
The Congress party was virtually wiped out in 2014 as the party failed to win a single Assembly or Lok Sabha seat due to public anger over the bifurcation of the united Andhra Pradesh. The party lost several senior leaders who joined either YSRCP or TDP. The party failed to open its account in 2019 as well. There were hopes that Sharmila’s appointment as state party chief would change the party’s fortunes in 2024. However, it once again failed to open its account.
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