Sharmila crosses new milestone, completes 200 days of padayatra

Hyderabad: YS Sharmila who has been continuing her Maro Praja Prasthanam yatra despite facing many health problems reached another milestone on Friday by completing 200 days of her walkathon. She touched the milestone soon after entering Visakhapatnam ( East) constituency where she was received by party leaders and supporters . Unfazed by criticism from opposition parties, Sharmila continued wal-kathon and covered around 2685 km by the end of her 200 day yatra. She targets to break the TDP President N Chandrababu Naidu's 2867 km walkathon and complete a record breaking 3000 km long padayatra. So far, Sharmila travelled 100 assembly constituencies covering 159 mandals, 38 municipalities, 8 corporations and nearly 1565 villages. After the arrest of the YSR Congress Party President YS Jaganmohan Reddy during his Odarpu yatra, Sharmila took up the cudgels and launched padayatra aiming to garner support for her brother Jagan and her father and former Chief minister YS Rajasekahra Reddy's welfare and development programmes launched for the upliftment of poor. She launched the yatra from Idupulapaya in YSR Kadapa district on October 12 last year. Party senior leader G Ramachandra Rao said Sharmila's padayatra boosted the morale of the party workers , who were disappointed after the arrest of Jagan. She is a youth icon and also created record by completing 200-day yatra. Sharmila created history by becoming the only woman to cross 100 constituencies during the course of her padayatra, he added. In the yatra, Sharmila tried to highlight the failure of Congress government during her mass contact programme. She also raised several issues including the government's failure in implementing YSR's schemes launched in 2004 and 2009 election. It may be mentioned here that Sharmila's father YSR conducted padayatra covering 1600 km in 2003.