VIJAYAWADA: Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan, still quite unsure of himself, has announced vaguely on Thursday that his party would go for an alliance with friendly political parties to seize power from the ruling YSRC and “safeguard” the interests of the people.
Addressing the media at Mangalagiri on Thursday, the Jana Sena chief said if his party secured a good number of assembly seats in the next polls, the post of chief minister would come his way.
In the 2019 polls, the Jana Sena contested in 137 assembly segments and its voting percentage ranged from seven to 30 per cent in these constituencies – the average being 16 per cent.
“As we are going for alliance with other parties, we need to win at least 30 to 40 assembly segments to demand the CM post. We discussed our party’s alliance with BJP national president J.P. Nadda during my visit to Delhi,” he said.
PK said, “As we are hearing about early polls in the state, we will start visiting several districts to meet the people from June. We don’t want to allow a split of the anti-YSR Congress votes.”
“We will present the facts and figures before the political parties to convince them to form an alliance with our party. We extended support to Telugu Desam and BJP in the 2014 polls without asking for a single seat.”
“If the Communists also join us, it will be good. Our party does not belong to any particular caste. We want all the people of the state to get power into their hands,” the Jana Sena leader said.
He said, “We want the Panchayat Raj system to be strengthened in AP on the lines of Kerala where the gram sarpanches will be having a major say in the funds allotment to develop the villages. We want to promote Gram Swaraj.”
Meanwhile, state BJP general secretary Vishnuvardhan Reddy said, “The BJP parliamentary board will take a decision on our party’s political alliance with other parties in AP. As of now, BJP is in alliance with Jana Sena and we will contest the polls in an alliance.”
BJP sources say Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself made it clear that the BJP was not in favour of an alliance with the YSR Congress and Telugu Desam as they are “family parties indulging in corrupt practices.”
