Campaign on Pawan’s Move to Centre Angers JS Cadre

Hyderabad: A widespread campaign, apparently at the behest of the Telugu Desam, that Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan would contest for Lok Sabha elections, irked his party leaders and followers.

Ever since the TD-JS combine sealed an electoral alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party two days ago in Delhi, the propaganda machinery was unleashed to claim that Pawan Kalyan was moving to national politics, even before the leaders had returned from the national capital.

“We are shocked to see the campaign. There was no talk of our party president contesting for the Lok Sabha at all and suddenly it is all there in the media,” a senior Jana Sena leader and confidant of Pawan Kalyan told Deccan Chronicle.

While Jana Sena leaders restrained themselves from commenting, social media groups involving the party cadre and Pawan Kalyan followers fumed at the propaganda in which they saw a sinister design to ease their supremo out of Andhra Pradesh politics. “They (TD leaders) need our leader to ride to power but they don’t want him once the objective is fulfilled,” said Akula Srinivas, a netizen and a die-hard supporter of Pawan Kalyan.

“They always see a potential threat in our hero and all this bonhomie is with an eye on the polls,” B. Venkateshwara Rao, another Jana Sena activist, said, adding that the cadre wanted their leader to remain in the state and help the party grow on its own.

Jana Sena leaders sought to remind the electoral ally TD of Pawan Kalyan to go to the Central Prison in Rajahmundry to visit his TD counterpart N. Chandrababu Naidu when its leaders were afraid of stepping out of their houses. Corroborating with Jana Sena leaders, a veteran journalist from Rajahmundry, K. Satyanarayana, said: “It is a fact that PK’s bold stand against Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy at the Ippatam public meeting, where he declared his resolve to keep the anti-incumbency vote intact, and his announcement of a poll pact from the Central Prison are game-changers.”

Jana Sena leaders were of the view that the cadre was initially severely upset over the party getting just 24 Assembly and two Lok Sabha seats but were coming to terms with it in the larger interest of the combine. “We still doubt whether the TD cadre will show the same integrity as us and transfer their vote wherever the Jana Sena or the BJP is contesting,” said a senior leader.

Party sources, to reiterate that their chief would stay on in the state, pointed out that Pawan Kalyan had committed himself to at least four films and had taken advances from producers. Moving to national politics at this juncture would upset the schedules and leave the producers high and dry, something that Pawan Kalyan would not do, they pointed out.