Giving up his tentativeness in stepping into direct electoral battle, former minister and Kapu strongman Mudragada Padmanabham on Friday expressed readiness to fight against Jana Sena Party chief and power star Pawan Kalyan.
“This is my strong desire. As challenged by YSR Congress party MLA from Kakinada Dwarampudi Chandrasekhar Reddy, get ready to fight against him from Kakinada in the coming elections. In case you have no courage to do so, be prepared to contest against me from Pithapuram. Throw me a challenge at least for this,” Mudragada said in his open letter to Pawan Kalyan.
Since Pawan Kalyan always claims that he takes inspiration from Bolivian revolutionary Che Guevara, he should display his courage by responding to this challenge.
“I hope you have the power and guts to take up either of the two challenges,” he said.
Mudragada said all these days, he had been in a state of dilemma whether to contest the elections or not.
“But at the right time, Pawan and his Jana Sena workers have started scolding me directly and on social media. This has given me a lot of enthusiasm and created an atmosphere for me to get ready for the battle. I am happy about it. Don’t forget that the harder you hit the ball on the ground, the stronger it would bounce back,” he said.
Addressing Pawan Kalyan as just an actor and not as a politician, the former minister wondered why the actor had chosen to attack him, though he had never made any statement against the former.
“You may consider it as a heroism by instigating your fans to scold me on social media and might have thought I might surrender to you. But it will never happen. You may be a hero in films, but not in politics,” he said.
Mudragada lashed out at Pawan Kalyan for speaking as if he was the only representative of Kapu community.
He asked why the actor had not called on the Kapu activists after the murder of Vangaveeti Ranga in 1988, Tuni train burning case in 2016 and the last year’s violence at Amalapuram.
He had ever tried to secure bail to them.
“Yet, Pawan tried to blame me saying I was exploiting Kapu sentiment,” he criticised.
He said Pawan had no moral right to talk about Kapus and their issues.
“It is not me, but you, who are instigating Kapus. I have a long association with Kakinada MLA Dwarampudi. For your sake, I do not want to distance myself from him. I don’t care about you,” he said.
