YSR Congerss Party

YSR Congress Party (Telugu: వై యస్ ఆర్ కాంగ్రెస్ పార్టీ) or Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (lit. Youth, Labour and Peasant Congress Party) is a regional political party in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. It was founded by Siva Kumar in 2009 and taken over by Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy, the son of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy (popularly known as YSR) in 2011.^[1] Both YSR and Jaganmohan Reddy (called Jagan by his followers) had been members of the Indian National Congress..^] Jagan was also elected as the national president of the party.

After the death of the then-incumbent Chief Minister Y. S. Rajashekhara Reddy in a helicopter crash in September 2009, his son Jaganmohan Reddy, the incumbent MP from Kadapa, started an Odarpu Yatra (condolence tour) across Andhra Pradesh, supposedly to console the families of those who had committed suicide or died of shock after the death of his father. This was however not supported by the Congress leadership.Congress President Sonia Gandhi claimed the rising volatile situation in the state regarding the Telangana issue as the main reason for opposing the "Odarpu Yatra". Defying the Congress High Command's order to call off the tour, Jagan went ahead with the first leg of the "Odarpu Yatra" in the West Godavari and Khammam districts from in April 2010.Background
[edit]

In between, the Jagan-promoted Sakshi TV news channel and Sakshi newspaper, had been continuously criticising the new Chief Minister Konijeti Rosaiah and the Congress leadership at New Delhi. In a special programme on Sakshi TV to mark the 125^th anniversary celebrations of the Congress party, a voice-over made remarks on Sonia Gandhi and the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the "current state of affairs" in the State, which invited anger and protests from the Congress loyalists and increased the gap and friction between Jagan and the Congress loyalists. The channel later deleted those remarks in a re-telecast.

Creation of the new party [edit]

After accusing the Congress of ill-treating him and creating rifts in his family by luring his uncle YS Vivekananda Reddy (younger brother of YSR) with a state ministerial berth in the aftermath of the death of his father, Jagan and his mother Y. S. Vijaya Lakshmi resigned from the Kadapa Lok Sabha and Pulivendula Assembly constituencies respectively and also as members of the Congress in November 2010.^[8] They took over the leadership of an existing YSR Congress Party in March 2011, which was founded by Siva Kumar, a Telangana-based advocate and a fan of YSR, in 2009.^] Many Congress leaders loyal to Jagan also quit the Congress and joined the YSR Congress. This resulted in the weakening of the Congress's strength in both the assembly and the Lok Sabha, necessitating by-elections. In the ensuing bi-elections, the party won most of the vacated seats with record breaking majorities, with many of the Congress and the Telugu Desam Party (the main opposition) candidates losing their deposits.^[10] The party currently has a strength of 17 members in the 295-member state assembly and 2 members in the Lok Sabha. As of May 2013, due to Jagan's legal troubles, at least one report described Y. S. Sharmila, Jagan's sister, as an "emerging force... within the party."

Electoral performance [edit]

In March 2012, YSR Congress won the Kovur assembly seat in Nellore district in a by-election.

On 10 30, 2012, YSR Congress won the Nellore Lok Sabha seat and 15 of 18 assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh. YSR Congress leaders P. Subhash Chandra Bose from Ramachandrapuram constituency of East Godavari district and Konda Surekha from Parakala constituency of Warangal district, both ministers in the YSR cabinet, had switched to YSR Congress party but lost their races.

Results [edit]

Year	Election	Seats Won	Seats Contested
2012	Assembly (By)	15	18