The recent whirlwind tour of power star and Jana Sena Party president Pawan Kalyan in coastal Andhra Pradesh has posed a lot of questions to political observers in the state as to where he wants to position himself in the state politics.
By disclosing that he had rejected the offer of BJP national president Amit Shah to merge his Jana Sena with the BJP, by attacking YSR Congress party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy and by going soft on Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu, Pawan made the political pundits wonder whether he is going to play a second fiddle to the TDP, in the wake of the reports that BJP is planning to sever ties with the TDP and join hands with the YSRC.
At the same time, Pawan tried to create an impression that he is not after power and that his only objective is to do service to the people.
Many times, he got irritated when his followers shouted “CM, CM” slogans and made it clear that there was no need to aspire for posts to serve people.
At one stage, YSRC MLA Roja said people come into politics only for the sake of posts and power; and if Pawan does not want power, he can as well run an NGO.
In the process, one important point of the latest Pawan speeches is that for the first time, he spoke in favour of his brother Chiranjeevi as a politician and his Praja Rajyam Party. He said he would not spare anybody who cheated his brother and misled him in politics.
This has given rise to the impression that Pawan’s sole objective of fighting the elections in 2019 is to make Chiranjeevi as the chief minister. And the megastar is discreetly supporting and funding Pawan’s campaign, say sources.
However, Pawan seems to have forgotten the fact that his silence on Naidu is being fully exploited by the TDP. A master strategist that he is, Naidu will make use of Pawan’s discreet support to win the next elections.
Once the BJP decides to go with the YSRC, Naidu will rope in Pawan by attending to all the issues raised by him and Pawan will have no way but to play to Naidu’s tunes!
