After the sudden 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 across Andhra Pradesh, to console the families of those who had committed suicide or died of shock after the death of his father. This tour was not supported by the Congress leadership. Congress President 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. Meanwhile, Sakshi TV news channel and Sakshi newspaper, had been continuously criticizing the new Chief Minister Konijeti Rosaiah and the Congress leadership at New Delhi. In a special programme on Sakshi TV to mark the 125th anniversary celebrations of the Congress party, a voice-over made remarks on Sonia Gandhi and the Prime MinisterManmohan 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.
Politics
After accusing the Congress of ill-treating him and creating rifts in his family by luring his uncle YS Vivekananda Reddy with a state ministerial berth in the aftermath of the death of his father, Jagan and his mother Y. S. Vijayamma resigned from the Kadapa Lok Sabha and PulivendulaAssembly constituencies respectively and also as members of the Congress in November 2010. 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 by-elections, the party won most of the vacated seats with record-breaking majorities, with many of the Congress and the Telugu Desam Party candidates losing their deposits. The party has a strength of 151 members in the 175-member state assembly and 22 members in the Lok Sabha as the election results declared on 23 May 2019, simultaneously.
Membership
In March 2012, YSR Congress won the Kovur assembly seat in Nellore district in a by-election. On 15 June 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. It lost the 2014 Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly election. It went for 2019 general elections by appointing Prashant Kishor, a renowned political strategist in Indian elections and emerged as the 5th largest political party in India. YSR Congress did not contest in Telangana Assembly election 2018. YSR Congress swept the 2019 Andhra pradesh assembly elections and 2019 General elections by winning 151 out of 175 seats in the assembly and 22 out of the 25 parliamentary seats. There by Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy became the second chief minister of Andhra pradesh.
