Pawan Kalyan tilts to Left

Vijayawada: In what could be viewed as a sign of emergence of third alternative in Andhra politics, the Jana Sena Party (JSP) headed by actor Pawan Kalyan and the Left parties seem finding a common ground to work together on public issues, beginning with currency woes of people induced by note ban.

CPI State secretary K Ramakrishna and his party MLC Chandrasekhar Rao were closeted with the JSP chief for nearly two hours at the latter’s residence in Hyderabad on Thursday.

Ramakrishna told The Hans India after the meeting, “We found like-mindedness in Pawan on issues such as special category status, liquidity crisis unleashed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to withdraw big notes from currency circulation.

The outcome is quite fruitful”. He said the ‘stinking’ corruption during the TDP-NDA regimes also prominently figured during the discussions. Ramakrishna said joint actions with the JSP will be planned after next round of meeting involving the CPI-M also.

CPI(M) state secretary P Madhu is not averse to work together with Pawan Kalyan. “Our party has no reservations to work with any party or group on issues of public importance,” he said.

In the same breath, he refused to read too much between the lines of the CPI- Pawan meeting. “Coming to a conclusion on formation of a third front with JSP basing on a single sitting is premature and out of context,” Madhu said.

The Left parties, however, admit that there is a need for emergence of a third alternative to the TDP and the Jagan’s YSRCP in the State.

“When different sections began feeling disillusioned by the TDP government’s misrule and YS Jaganmohan Reddy as leader of opposition is failing to fill the void, there is certainly a scope for emergence of third alternative in the state”, Ramakrishna observed.
Lending credence to such views, Pawan appeared to have distanced himself away from the TDP and the BJP gradually after his ‘king-maker’ role in the previous elections.

His tough talk on the special category status, alienation of farmers from lands in the name of industrial progress and displacement of poor by the pollution-causing industries like the Godavari mega food park in Bhimavaram gives this impression.

A source close to Pawan Kalyan said the JSP chief has decided to test the waters in a bid to let his allies know his popular base in the wake of the ‘government-sponsored’ surveys published in a language daily which suggested that the TDP could come back to power on its own with a comfortable majority.

The Left parties, which treat the BJP as its ideological rival, found a friend in Pawan after he started training guns on both the NDA and TDP governments.

Hailing from the numerically strong Kapu community, Pawan Kalyan support became decisive for the TDP-BJP combine in the 2014 general elections. He could influence the educated youth and software professionals from within and even outside his community in favour of the TDP-BJP alliance at the time of elections.

The sources close to the JSP leader said the performance of the TDP-NDA governments in the last 30 months is not up to his expectations. He is said to have been thoroughly disheartened by the manner in which the capital farmers were `forced’ to give up their lands in Amaravati and corruption is spread to all the public spheres during the TDP regime.

This is the reason why he decided to reach out to the people by organising massive rallies region-wise. He has planned to launch a massive rally in north coastal Andhra in January, highlighting the need to address regional imbalances after leading a similar show in Anantapur a few days ago.

The TDP and the BJP either are wary of the moves of Pawan while getting into sensing the public mood without jumping the gun.