Actor-politician Pawan Kalyan at political crossroads after poll disaster

After a serious drubbing in the recently held assembly and Lok Sabha elections in Andhra Pradesh, popular Telugu film actor and Jana Sena Party founder-president Pawan Kalyan now stands at a virtual crossroads.

His party won just one out of 138 seats it had contested in the elections in alliance with CPI, CPI (M) and Bahujan Sama Party for the 175-member state assembly. Pawan himself failed to win 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 per cent and lost deposits in as many as 120 assembly seats. In the parliament elections for 25 seats in the state, it drew a blank as the YSR Congress party swept .both the Lok Sabha and assembly polls in Andhra Pradesh.

Shocked by the election results, Pawan had gone into a silent mode after making a brief appearance before media on the day of results on May 23 conceding the party’s defeat. It was only three days ago that Pawan Kalyan surfaced in the party office at Mangalagiri to discuss the future course of action with his party seniors.

“The election results are no doubt a big setback to Pawan, but he is not a person who will give up his fight. He will come back strongly. He has promised to come to the party office regularly from second week of June to chalk out party programmes,” a Jana Sena leader familiar with the development said.

However, his party leaders and cadre have already started losing hope on the party and looking for greener pastures. Pawan’s close confidant and party treasurer M Raghavaiah and Addepalli Sridhar quit the party much earlier and on Monday, a large number of party workers in Guntur district joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in the presence of BJP state unit president Kanna Lakshminarayana.

Like his elder brother and mega star Chiranjeevi whose Praja Rajyam Party floated in 2008 was a failed experiment, Pawan, too, made the same mistake of entering politics when there was no political vacuum in the state.

In the run up to the elections, N Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) which has a strong cadre base was going all out to retain power even as the YSR Congress party of Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy mounted a serious challenge to wrest power.

At this stage, there was hardly any place for Jana Sena, which had neither resources nor cadre support, to win the elections. In 2009 elections, his elder brother could at least put up an impressive show, by winning 18 assembly seats with a vote share of 16.3 per cent, because of his charisma and presence of senior politicians who defected from Congress and TDP.

In fact, compared to Chiranjeevi, Pawan had lot of advantages – he established Jana Sena in March 2014 but did not contest the elections then. So, he had full five years to develop the party in the next five years. He used to make occasional appearances in public whenever there is an issue and then go back into his own shell.

“Unlike Jagan who systematically built up an anti-establishment atmosphere in the state, Pawan never came out with a clear political stand. Only a few months before the elections, he started attacking Naidu and his son Lokesh, but by that time, the mood of the people had already swung towards Jagan,” senior journalist and political analyst Mallu Rajesh.

Even the Kapu dimension did not work in favour of Pawan who was initially backed by the community. Though the Kapu youth rallied behind Pawan, his inconsistent stand on their demand for reservations under OBC quota disappointed them.

“In fact, whatever little vote share Jana Sena got, it was only because of Kapu votes in East and West Godavari, parts of Viskakhapatnam and Krishna districts, where it caused immense damage to the TDP, rather than splitting the anti-establishment vote,” Rajesh said.

When he was in film industry, Pawan was one of the most highly-paid actors and now, there is a talk in the film circles that he might be back into films to regain his lost image while continuing his political activity. However, there is no such indication from the actor himself so far.

First Published: Jun 03, 2019 19:05 IST