Another star rising? Jagan govt crackdown on a Pawan Kalyan protest could be a trailer

While the police say the crackdown was a response to the ruckus Jana Sena Party supporters created Saturday evening outside the Visakhapatnam airport, allegedly attacking vehicles of YSRCP ministers, the notice to Kalyan could mean that there is growing anxiety about his criticism of the state government and his positioning to provide an alternative “people’s government” in the state.

Kalyan has lately been hitting out at the state government on alleged corruption, high-handedness of the YSRCP leaders, and attacks on the judiciary by the YSRCP leadership and cadre. In the last couple of months, he has also spoken about unemployment, power cuts, delay in fee reimbursement to students, decaying civic infrastructure, among other issues.

Pushing for decentralisation, Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy wants to make Visakhapatnam the administrative capital, along with Amaravati as the legislative capital, and Kurnool as the judicial capital even as the three-capitals matter is pending before the Supreme Court.

The CM had directed his ministers to hold programmes in the port city to garner people’s support for the decision on Sunday. Kalyan landed in the city the same day. He claimed that JSP leaders had arranged for the programme at least two months prior and that it was not aimed to counter the public meeting organised by ministers.

Kalyan has been opposing Jagan’s idea of three capitals and demanding that the state government develop Amaravati as the state capital based on the directions of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in March.

The JSP’s ally, the BJP, is also not keen on the three capitals concept. The crackdown on Kalyan’s programme Sunday also coincided with BJP national secretary and state in-charge Sunil Deodhar’s statement that people were considering the BJP-Jana Sena alliance as an alternative to the YSRCP and TDP. Deodhar, who was in Visakhapatnam to attend the BJP’s outreach programme of holding street meetings called “Praja Poru”, said the BJP and JSP would contest the 2024 elections jointly. The JSP also tacitly supports the TDP.

Party leaders say they have noticed a steady increase in the number of people turning up to listen to Kalyan, who has been touring the state.

The JSP’S Arc

Andhra has a history of film stars moving to politics, and Kalyan has an example close to home. He is the younger brother of film star Chiranjeevi, who also dabbled in politics briefly.

Kalyan launched the JSP on March 14, 2014. However, he did not contest the elections that year and supported the TDP-BJP alliance at the time by campaigning alongside TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Pawan would later go on record to later say that “he became disillusioned” with the TDP over issues of farm distress and the non-grant of “special category status” for the state, that was promised during the bifurcation of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in 2014.

Kalyan started actively touring Andhra Pradesh the coming year and began meeting farmers, women, unemployed youth, academicians and professionals. In the 2019 elections, the JSP contested but won only one seat – Palacole – in the West Godavari district. Kalyan himself lost in Gajuwaka and Bhimavaram, the two constituencies he contested from.

Pawan has spoken about bringing social equality and says his party represents politics without caste or religion. A key point in his manifesto, which he has repeatedly stressed upon, is to bring the CM under the independent corruption watchdog of the Lok Ayukta. His legion of fans and fan clubs dub the said ideology “Pawanism”.

When he started off, Pawan was the only known face in the party, which has grown since. The other recognisable faces in the party now are former Speaker Nadendla Manohar and former IPS officer V V Lakshminarayana.

While the BJP maintains that it will not have anything to do with the TDP, Kalyan has a good relationship with Naidu. The latter threw his weight behind Kalyan after the Andhra Police foiled his Visakhapatnam programme, including calling him and condemning the police action.