 "YS Sharmila")
Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee president YS Sharmila Reddy, along with 40 other workers from the Congress party, were detained in Vijayawada on Thursday for blocking roads and chanting slogans as part of a planned protest march towards the Secretariat.
#WATCH | Andhra Pradesh Congress President YS Sharmila Reddy detained by police in Vijayawada. https://t.co/eKE9OWYIzX pic.twitter.com/PcCh1XwSQw
— ANI (@ANI) February 22, 2024
The Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) had organised a 'chalo secretariat' protest march from its headquarters at Andhra Ratna Bhavan. Sharmila had spent the previous night in the party office to avoid house arrest.
Chalo Secretariat protest
The 'Chalo Secretariat' protest demands that the Jagan Mohan Reddy-led government address the issues faced by unemployed youth and students.
Sharmila, on Wednesday, told the media that her brother and the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy have failed to address these issues in the last five years.
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"If we call for protest on behalf of the unemployed, will you try to keep us under house arrest? Don't we have the right to protest in a democracy? Is it not shameful that as a woman I have been forced to evade the police and spend the night in the Congress Party office to avoid house arrest," Sharmila posted on X.
She also slammed the state government, saying that "they are afraid of us".
"Are we terrorists…or anti-social forces? They are trying to stop us… It means they [the government\ are afraid of us. They are trying to hide our incompetence, the real truth. Even if they try to stop us, stop our workers, our struggle on behalf of the unemployed will not stop," she further said in her post.
YS Sharmila, on January 4, had joined the Congress at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters in New Delhi. She merged her YSR Telangana Party (YSRTP) with Congress in the presence of the grand old party's national president, Mallikarjun Kharge, and leader, Rahul Gandhi.
