It is going to be season of public meetings in Telangana shortly, as the state is most likely to witness early elections to the state assembly in November or December.
Soon after the public meeting of Congress president Rahul Gandhi in Hyderabad early this week, Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao announced that he would address a massive public meeting on September 3 with 20 lakh people somewhere near Outer Ring Road on the outskirts of Hyderabad, where he wants to present his government’s report card of the last four years.
And within a day, the Telangana Congress, too, announced that it would also hold an equally huge public meeting in Telangana, which would be addressed by Rahul Gandhi again.
Now, the latest leader to join the chorus is Jana Sena Party chief Pawan Kalyan.
On Saturday, he declared that he would address a massive public meeting in Hyderabad in the second or third week of September. He asked the party leaders of Telangana to make arrangements to that effect.
What is more interesting is that Pawan gave a call to the party leaders and cadre of Telangana to be prepared to face early elections in the state.
He said Jana Sena would put up a strong fight in Telangana as well. He asked the party leaders to ensure that at least 15 lakh active workers are enrolled as party members.
This is really surprising as Pawan Kalyan has so far not focussed on Telangana, except in the initial days. He even shifted his party headquarters to Vijayawada. But now, he wants to enter the poll fray in Telangana as well.
Analysts say the reason is very simple: Pawan wants to split the anti-establishment vote as much as he can, so that it would benefit the TRS.
He has already been issuing pro-TRS statements; so, no way he has any plans to capture power in Telangana.
His target therefore is the Congress party, which is likely to join hands with the TDP to grab the settlers’ votes.
If Pawan enters the fray, he can definitely split a good number of settlers’ voters and that would ultimately help the TRS!
