‘Evil army’: Sharmila says brother Jagan told his supporters to go after her on social media

“Jagan’s supporters, who were running the YSRCP social media cell, did and posted as they wanted, and there was no oversight. They posted vulgar and nasty comments without any checks. They posted comments against me; Y S Sunitha, the daughter of Y S Vivekananda Reddy, who was murdered; my mother, Y S Vijayamma; and everyone who is with me,” she said.

“I am saying that Jagan Mohan Reddy himself told them (his supporters) to make those indecent posts,” Sharmila said. “The social media activists of YSRCP are an evil army that indulge in character assassination, intimidation, and coercion. The Andhra Pradesh government should declare a plan to tackle and regulate this. The (N Chandrababu) Naidu government has cracked down on YSRCP social media accounts’ offensive posts, but the main culprits, who are at the top of the party, have not faced any action,” Sharmila said.

The two siblings’ rivalry has been in the limelight recently, with Jagan saying in September that “there is no love lost” between them.

Jagan had made the remark as part of his complaint before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) accusing Sharmila of usurping shares in a power company using their mother Y S Vijaya Lakshmi’s (or Vijayamma’s) name. Sharmila has rejected the accusation, with an official in her office calling the petition “false and misleading”.

A month later, Sharmila wrote an open letter addressed to Jagan, saying that their father had specifically asked for his businesses to be equally distributed.

In the letter, she said that she stood with Jagan after their father’s death and that she was treated well. However, she claimed that Jagan was “unrecognisable” after he became CM, and proposed to divide the family and sought a greater share in businesses.