History of sorts was made when YSR Congress party leader Sharmila crossed the milestone of 3,000 km during her walkathon on Monday.
Sharmila who had started her “Padyatra” (journey by walk) from her father YS Rajasekhar Reddy’s grave in Kadapa district last year, crossed the historic milestone at Dhanapuram village in Srikakulam district in north coastal Andhra.
Even as the YSRCP leader was getting a boisterous welcome from her supporters on the historic occasion, the party was plunged into a deep crisis in Telangana region. Party’s leaders and the rank and file in the region were up in arms in protest against the anti-Telangana State stand taken by the party’s leaders from Andhra and Rayalaseema regions.
As the party suffered exodus of workers in Warangal and other Telangana districts, its key leaders in the region former Minister Konda Surekha and her husband former MlC Konda Murli went on offensive against the YSR family.
Strongly condemning the anti-Telangana stand of the party, Konda Surekha said, “not keeping word is a habbit of Jagan”.
“Party’s stand on Telangana has hurt the self respect of the people of the region,” she wrote in an open letter addressed to Jaganmohan Reddy, who is in jail.
Konda Surekha termed the YSRCP as “private limited company” owned by Jaganmohan Reddy and his family. Her outburst came as a surprise as she was the first Minister to resign from the State Cabinet demanding that Jagan should be made Chief Minister after his father YSR’s death.
Meanwhile, the YSRCP hailed Sharmila’s Padyatra as a historic achievement. Sharmila has become the only political figure in the State to walk for such a long distance through thousands of villages to interact with the masses about the problems and difficulties they were facing.
Earlier, her father YSR had undertaken nearly 1,500-km-long Padyatra in 2003 and Telugu Desam president and former CM N Chandrababu Naidu covered 2,808 kms during his walkathon from October 2, 2012 to April 2013. However, Sharmila had to take three months break in the middle of the Padyatra as she suffered a knee fracture.
