BJP-Sena alliance has always hit the headlines. This time, Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan and state BJP president Kanna Lakshmi Narayana announced an alliance at a press conference after a four-hour-long meeting of leaders of the two parties in Vijayawada.
Kalyan, who made derogatory statements about the BJP in the past, landed up praising Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. Well politics knows no morals and it’s all about the greed of power. In Andhra Pradesh, if BJP projects Pawan Kalyan as its CM face there are chances that his community may support the alliance. On the other hand, there is news of an internal unrest in the BJP because many of the local leaders are not in favour of projecting Pawan Kalyan as CM face. Besides CM candidate, what Andhra needs is a strong leader who is not corrupt and has a vision. Since Andhra Pradesh became a separate state, they did not get a non-corrupt government. The development of the state is at stake. Though we cannot guarantee about Pawan Kalyan being clean as he has both money and muscle power and with wasted power comes the vested interest too. But, still BJP has a choice to pick a lesser evil. If we look into the past, Jana Sena was formed in March 2014 amid the Modi wave and after supporting the BJP-TDP coalition initially, had fallout out it. The two outfits have also announced that they will contest the 2024 assembly elections together and will have a seat sharing arrangement well in time. For now, the alliance will focus on strengthening the protest against decision to have three state capitals.
For the first time, Pawan came to active politics in 2009 when his brother Chiranjeevi launched Praja Rajyam party. He campaigned across the state against the then atrocities of then YSR led Congress government. He worked very hard in those election campaigns for his brother. But those election results were very shocking and eye opener for Chiranjeevi. He flopped in his political debut. There are so many reasons for the failure and megastar ended up with a mere 18 seats and then Kalyan took it in a sportive spirit. But after two years, Chiranjeevi merged his party PRP into the Congress against whom they campaigned all these years, same like Shiv Sena in Maharashtra who were ideologically and principally against Congress-NCP recently sidelined BJP and joined hands with the secular alliance. This triggered a silent rift between the two brothers and Pawan Kalyan distanced himself from that merger. He ideologically always hated Congress, he campaigned against Congress but his big brother merged the party for the sake of a Ministry. After the 2009 election defeat of Praja Rajyam, things did not go well with them. The state too was divided as Andhra and Telangana. The 2014 election was power packed, that elected Telangana’s Kalvakuntla Chandrashekhar Rao better known as K.C.R the first Chief Minister of Telangana and the leader and Founder of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, a regional party. In the centre of it was the Modi wave, the political equations across India took new twists. BJP was all set to concur and everyplace the leftists & seculars got disowned by voters. There was threat and challenges for the survival of regional parties. Looking at emerging new equations and total failure of big brother Kalyan, he launched his new party Jana Sena and gave the slogan “Congress Hatao Desh Bachao “ similar to Modi’s “Congress Mukt Bharat”.
Pawan Kalyan was always overshadowed by his more illustrious brother. Everyone knew that Pawan didn’t have it easy coming from a family of such a popular actor. However, it is to Pawan’s credit that he proved his mettle by becoming a Power Star. It all culminated in Pawan launching his own political outfit Jana Sena in style just like his brother Chiranjeevi’s now extinct Praja Rajyam. Pawan’s debut political speech too was loaded with the same power and intensity as of Chiranjeevi when the latter had launched his outfit. He campaigned heavily, but did not contest elections as it would have split the votes and YS Jagan could have benefitted of it. He compared both the leaders at the Central and the State level and went with Narendra Modi as PM and Chandrababu Naidu as CM. He campaigned for both of them in the state and helped them at his level to win in the election. During the campaigning of 2014 elections, he announced that he will question the Central Government and State Government if they fail to keep their promises. For a long time, he kept silent but when the Central Government led by Modi refused to give special status to Andhra Pradesh which was their election promise, the State Government started downplaying it by passing statements like “special status is not a sanjeevani.” Kalyan came to the surface questioning Modi and Naidu. Jana Sena started giving voice to people’s problem like special status to Andhra Pradesh, land acquisition for farmers, mega aqua food park issues at East Godavari, kidney diseases at Srikakulam, sand dumping at Polavaram, farmers land and mainly the Agrigold victims. After many permutations and combinations once again BJP and Pawan Kalyan announced an alliance and emerged as ‘third alternative’ in Andhra.
Chiranjeevi in 2008 in a grand manner announced the launch of Praja Rajyam in Tirupati with the slogan ‘PREME LAKSHYAM SEVA E MARGAM.’ He began with: “Who called me into politics? It was you people. What do you want?… It should be a rule by the people for the people.” About his party, he said: “Praja Rajyam will be a party of backward and weaker sections, farmers, labourers and women. Pawan Kalyan too while launching his Jana Sena followed the same. On why, he entered politics, he averred, “Politics is nothing when compared to the love showered by my fans and supporters. While Chiranjeevi’s PRP launch was a mega affair in open grounds, Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena launch was just a press meet but made best use of technology for wider reach. The PRP launch saw many speakers address the gathering before Chiranjeevi spoke. However, during Jana Sena launch, Pawan was the sole speaker.While Chiranjeevi confined himself to state politics, Pawan touched upon national politics. The actor did not spare even Pakistan and China to prove his general knowledge. Meanwhile, Praja Rajyam faded out and now it’s almost forgotten. Let’s see what fate Kalyan brings to his political party and his persona as politician.
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