Actor-turned-Jana Sena Party president Pawan Kalyan’s whirlwind tour in Srikakulam district has triggered a panic reaction in the ruling Telugu Desam Party which has been treating the district as its bastion all these years.
So much so that TDP president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu was forced to hold an emergency official meeting to review the issues raised by Pawan Kalyan during his tour in the district, including Uddanam kidney diseases issue and Vamsadhara project evacuees’ problems.
But field reports say it is not just the TDP, but even the main Opposition YSR Congress party, which has become alert to Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Porata Yatra, which entered Vizianagaram district on Thursday.
The YSRC’s think tank is learnt to have woken up to the fact that Pawan Kalyan had drawn tremendous response from the people in Srikalulam.
If he is able to repeat the same kind of support in Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam as well, then it is a matter of concern for the YSRC as well.
Analysts say there is marked difference between Jagan and Pawan’s style of approach towards the people.
While Jagan is mostly focussing on attacking Naidu and his government, besides promising that he would bring in a golden era if he is voted to power, Pawan is focussing mostly on local issues.
“He is making a deep study of the issues and raising them in his speeches, besides of course pulling up the Naidu government for failing to resolve them. He is not talking of coming to power now, creating the impression that he is not power hungry,” an analyst said.
Though Jagan still enjoys an advantage over Pawan in having a clear political agenda and the strategies to counter Naidu like making his party MPs to resign and highlighting the special category issue, the YSRC leadership is now worried whether Pawan will upset Jagan’s calculations on regaining the narrow margin with which the TDP won the 2014 elections.
“All these days, the YSRC had been striving to bridge the gap of 2.5 per cent vote with which it conceded to the TDP in 2014 and gain another five per cent vote bank. But with the entry of Pawan, there is a possibility of this calculation getting upset.
He might split a big chunk of the anti-establishment vote and that might ultimately benefit the TDP,” the analyst observed.
