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Actor-turned-politician Pawan Kalyan hints at allying with BJP, takes up Hindutva cause
Tollywood actor Pawan Kalyan launched the Jana Sena Party before the 2014 general elections and supported the BJP-Telugu Desam Party combine in Andhra Pradesh, but did not contest.
Popular Telugu actor and Jana Sena Party president Pawan Kalyan on Wednesday hinted at forging an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) once again in the coming days.
Addressing a press conference at Tirupati, the actor-turned-politician said he had never distanced himself from the BJP but was very much associated with it. He clarified that he had differed with the BJP before the last elections only for the sake of people.
“Political equations keep changing with time in the interests of the people. One should look at the change only in the spirit of the Constitution,” Pawan said.
The Tollywood actor, the youngest brother of film star and former Union minister K Chiranjeevi, launched the Jana Sena Party before the 2014 general elections and supported the BJP-Telugu Desam Party combine in Andhra Pradesh, but did not contest.
In 2019, Pawan went the separate way and contested the assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh in alliance with the CPI, CPI(M) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). The alliance fared badly in the elections winning just one seat in the 175-member assembly.
Pawan himself failed to win from either of the two seats he had contested – Bhimavaram in West Godavari and Gajuwaka in Visakhapatnam.
The party registered a meagre vote share of 6.78% and lost deposits in as many as 120 assembly seats. In the parliamentary elections for 25 seats in the state, it drew a complete blank.
Stating that he had differed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi only on the issue of rejecting the people’s demand for special category status, the Jana Sena chief said the YSR Congress (YSRC) party would not have come to power, had he continued the alliance with the BJP and the TDP in the recent elections as well.
“For not joining hands with the TDP and BJP, the YSRC leaders should be indebted to me. In fact, the YSRC, too, sent its delegation to me seeking my support,” he claimed.
Pawan said he had a lot of respect for the BJP’s national president and Union home minister Amit Shah and that the YSRC’s leaders were afraid of him.
Earlier at a meeting in Tirupati on Sunday, the Jana Sena chief had said the country needed leaders like Modi and Shah who were the best bet for the present-day politics.
Interestingly, Pawan also expressed concern over the growing threat to Hinduism under chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.
“Propagation of other religions has been going on in Hindu temples and religious institutions. Why doesn’t Jagan utter a word when the conversion of Hindus into Christianity has been going on blatantly on the banks of Krishna River in Vijayawada, hardly a couple of kilometres from his residence?” he asked.
He said unlike other political parties, which followed pseudo-secularism, he had no fear of losing the votes of other religions, as he was speaking the truth.
“I will not tolerate if there was any harm to Hinduism in my state,” the Jana Sena leader said.
The BJP welcomed Pawan Kalyan’s statement that he had never been away from the party.
“If Pawan is interested in merging his party with the BJP, we wholeheartedly welcome the same. He should have done it before the recent election itself, but for some reason, he differed with us,” GVL Narasimha Rao, BJP lawmaker and the party’s official spokesperson, said.
YSRC leader and state information minister Perni Nani said Pawan’s statement was a clear indication that he was going to merge his Jana Sena with the BJP soon.
“He has praised Amit Shah only with an intention to get closer to the BJP, while working for the interests of the TDP back home. We don’t acknowledge him as a politician, as he has no consistent stand in politics,” Nani said.
