AP_The graveyard of political parties

The Jana Sena Party launched by Pawan Kalyan is the latest one in united AP, preceded by the Jai Samaikyandhra Party of Kiran Kumar Reddy.

Several parties emerged in the last six decades starting from Reddy Congress to the latest Jana Sena Party. But in most cases the parties were short-lived

Hyderabad: Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena Party will be the last political party to be launched in united Andhra Pradesh.

In the last 58 years, Andhra Pradesh has seen the emergence of several parties. In fact, the spurt in the number of political parties began after 1982 when the legendary film actor, NT Rama Rao, launched the Telugu Desam Party and romped home victorious to form a government within nine months.

Several parties emerged in the last six decades starting from Reddy Congress to the latest Jana Sena Party. But in most cases the parties were short-lived.

In 1969, Marri Chenna Reddy launched the Telangana Praja Samiti demanding separate T State, won 10 out of 11 seats he contested, and later merged with the Congress. Later, another party with the same name had appeared, but did not survive for long.

The TDP too had some hiccups like backstabbing by Nadendla Bhaskar Rao, but quick and strategic moves helped NTR to come back to power.

One of NTR’s close associates, Nallapureddy Srinivasulu Reddy, differed with NTR, floated Seenaiah Sena, went to Delhi, held press conferences and lashed out at NTR alleging that he had ruined the State’s economy with his freebies. But his party did not receive much of a support. Rajiv Gandhi admitted him into the Congress party.

The TDP also faced another major storm in 1994 when the present president, N Chandrababu Naidu, staged a coup and took over the party. After the split, NTR called his party TDP (NTR). After his death, the party was led by his second wife Lakshmi Parvathi. The party does not exist now with Parvati joining the YSRCP. NTR’s son Harikrishna also floated a party, Anna TDP; however, even that party had evaporated into thin air.

In 1995, P Indra Reddy, who differed with Chandrababu Naidu after he dethroned NTR, sided with NTR (TDP) and later started his own party, Jai Telangana Party. He merged his party with the Congress after the 1998 elections. In 2001 when K Chandrasekhar Rao could not get a berth in Naidu’s cabinet, he floated TRS (Telangana Rashtriya Samithi) which has now emerged as a major political force which succeeded in achieving T state.

Just before the last general elections in 2009, film actor Chiranjeevi floated Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) from Tirupati, but that party also, in a very short span of time, merged with the Congress and Chiranjeevi migrated to Delhi as a union minister.

TDP second in command T Devender Ground is another leader whose experiment to launch Nava Telangana Praja Party also proved to be a futile attempt. HE rejoined the TDP.

Another party that emerged on the political horizon of the State was the YSRCP, launched by Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, the son of former Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy. The party has succeeded in finding a support base in Seemandhra and cannot be written off. There were some others like Vijayshanti who launched Talli Telangana. After failing to make an impact, she merged it with the TRS. Now she has joined the Congress party.

Several others like evangelist KA Paul announced Praja Shanthi Party, while Trilinga Praja Pragati Party was started by dialogue writer Tripuraneni Maharadhi which never saw the limelight. It now remains to be seen how effective the Jai Samaikyandhra Party would fare which has been launched by former chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy.

Apart from these, MRPS founder Manda Krishna Madiga recently floated the Mahajana Socialist Party.