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Pawan Kalyan at crossroads in Andhra politics
Kalyan floated the Jana Sena in March 2014, three years after his elder brother and megastar of Tollywood Chiranjeevi merged his fledgling political party – Praja Rajyam – with the Congress
A decade after founding Jana Sena Party(JSP) amid a lot of hype, popular Tollywood actor Pawan Kalyan is now virtually at crossroads of his political career, facing a bleak future for himself and his party in the coming years.
Kalyan floated the Jana Sena in March 2014, three years after his elder brother and megastar of Tollywood Chiranjeevi merged his fledgling political party – Praja Rajyam – with the Congress, after he realised the futility of running a political party in the state where there is no political vacuum. He quietly accepted the Rajya Sabha seat and joined the then Manmohan Singh cabinet.
Ten years down the line, Kalyan is facing a similar situation as he is struggling to find a space in the Andhra politics dominated by two major regional parties – YSR Congress Party and Telugu Desam Party.
When Kalyan floated his party in March of 2014, he did not have much time to contest the assembly elections held in April of the same year, soon after the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh. Except huge fan following and a euphoric Kapu community which he belongs to, his party had no organisational structure and leadership that would take a plunge into politics immediately.
So, the actor chose to support the Telugu Desam Party-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance and helped it come to power. But in the next five years, too, Kalyan did not make any attempt to build up his party as a strong force to reckon, even as the YSRCP led by Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy grew from strength to strength and encroached upon whatever little space the Jana Sena had in the state.
Just before the 2019 elections, Kalyan suddenly woke up from the slumber and weeks before the assembly elections, started attacking the TDP led by N Chandrababu Naidu. He even criticised the Narendra Modi government for betraying the people on issues like granting special category status to Andhra Pradesh.
He joined hands with the Communist parties and the Bahujan Samaj Party to fight the 2019 elections, in which Jagan Mohan Reddy emerged victorious with a thumping majority of 151 out of 175 assembly seats. Jana Sena ended up with just around 5% vote share and one MLA, who eventually joined the YSRCP. Kalyan lost both the seats he had contested – Gajuwaka in Visakhapatnam and Bhimavaram in West Godavari.
Soon after the elections, Kalyan was back into his shell, coming out occasionally to take part in film shootings. He did not give up the politics completely – he dumped the Left parties and the BSP, and joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has also become insignificant in the state politics.
But the alliance was not visible on ground, as both the parties never organised any programmes together. The Jana Sena Party tested its ground by contesting the local body elections in 2020-21, but drew a virtual blank in all the districts. Kalyan took up a few public outreach programmes, but they were more of a personal show, rather than an effort to build up the party at the grassroots level.
Even as the TDP was bouncing back to regain its lost ground in the last five years and emerging as a major threat to the YSRCP, the JSP remain subdued with not many public outreach programmes.
However, Jana Sena Party continued to be the rallying point for the Kapu community and its allied sub-castes who account for nearly 25% of the electorate. “The Kapus, who had voted mostly for YSRCP in 2019, were frustrated with the Jagan government and had been hoping to see Pawan Kalyan as their saviour in the 2024 elections. They desperately tried to project him as the prospective chief minister, but he did not live up to their expectations and did not focus on building up the party,” political analyst Mallu Rajesh said.
As the elections were fast approaching, Kalyan realised that the TDP has emerged as the front runner for power; so, he entered into an alliance with the TDP. On the other hand, Chandrababu Naidu, too, desperately needed the support of the Kapu community and hence, joined hands with Kalyan.
But what disappointed the Kapu leaders is the way Kalyan meekly surrendered to the TDP and accepted only 24 assembly seats and three Lok Sabha seats as part of the alliance. Veteran Kapu leader and former MP Ch Harirama Jogaiah, who is heading Kapu Samkshema Sena, said the Jana Sena Party chief has terribly disappointed the community.
“Jana Sena chief should have demanded a respectable number, around 50 assembly seats, from the TDP, as Naidu cannot come to power without Pawan Kalyan’s support. He should have also got a firm commitment from Naidu on power sharing between the two parties with him being in the CM post for the first two years,” Jogaiah said.
Another Kapu leader and YSR Congress party spokesman Ambati Rambabu said Kalyan had betrayed the trust of his community. “How can he expect to become the chief minister by accepting just 24 seats? It is better he merges his party with the TDP just like his brother Chiranjeevi merged his Praja Rajyam Party with the Congress earlier,” he advised.
Kalyan, however, defended his move. “I accepted only 24 seats because my primary objective is not to become the chief minister but to dethrone the Jagan government first,” he said.
He admitted that he had not amassed wealth like Jagan nor did he have four decades of organised political experience like TDP. “We are building every brick and house. We don’t need suggestions. We need people who are ready to fight,” he said.
Another political analyst Sriram Karri said 10 years was too long a period for any political party to sustain. “When he launched the party in 2014, people looked at him as a hero. But in the last 10 years, he proved to be only a side-hero. The 2024 election was an opportunity for him to emerge as a hero again, but he chose to play second fiddle to the TDP by accepting 24 seats. Maybe, he is looking for 2029 elections, but that is a long way to go,” Karri said.
