Majority of BJP activists across the state prefer a tie-up with Jana Sena party over any other existing mainstream parties.
The BJP’s Andhra Pradesh unit president Kanna Lakshminarayana is gathering opinion from his party leaders over joining hands with actor-turned politician Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena party in next year’s general elections. Pawan Kalyan has already said he won’t mind going it alone, though it is too early to talk about electoral alliances.
A majority of BJP activists across the state have told Lakshminarayana that they would prefer a tie-up with Pawan Kalyan to any other existing mainstream parties as people look up to them for a cleaner image and different politics. The 48-year-old Pawan, younger brother of former Union minister and Congress leader Chiranjeevi, carries a clean image among his fans and followers.
The BJP is hoping to increase its vote share and number of seats in both Assembly and Lok Sabha in Andhra, particularly after parting ways with the ruling TDP in March. The BJP top brass is keen on improving its 2014 tally of two MPs in AP. This is part of their nationwide strategy to win more seats from new areas to make up for the possible losses in its current strongholds.
Keeping that in view, the BJP top brass has selected Lakshminarayana, a former Congress minister who commands loyalty in his numerically strong Kapu community, as its state unit president. The BJP has been demanding Kapus’ inclusion on the list of OBCs in AP. Lakshminarayana, who joined BJP in 2014, is keen on playing an aggressive role in the state, unlike many other docile seniors in the party. The BJP secured its highest vote share in1999 when Atal Behari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister. It bagged around 18% of votes in coastal districts, but later lost it over successive polls due to its understanding with the ruling TDP. Even now, many senior BJP leaders feel that it was a mistake to go with the TDP in 1999 and the same led to their defeat in 2004.
BJP general secretary Ram Madhav, who held a meeting with Lakshminarayana and other seniors in Guntur in the last week of May, told them that it was important to increase the number party MPs in 2019, so that Narendra Modi becomes PM again. Madhav instructed Lakshminarayana and other old-guards like former state unit president and MP K. Haribabu to work together.
But Lakshminarayana as well as a section of leaders who came from the Congress four years ago are of the view that the BJP cannot improve its tally unless it aligns with a stronger ally in Andhra. The party has only two options to join hands with: Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSR Congress and Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena.
Though Jagan and his party’s seniors like Rajya Sabha MP K. Vijaya Sai Reddy are soft on BJP, it is unlikely that there will be a pre-poll adjustment between the two. Jagan, according to sources in the BJP, might go for a post-poll alliance with them. This leaves the BJP leaders with no option but to try to join hands with Pawan Kalyan.
Pawan Kalyan, like Lakshminarayana, is a Kapu is popular among the youths of the caste. Some Kapu leaders who want their community to come to power by grabbing the CM post are working behind the scenes to bring closer the two leaders. If that happens, they can go with the social justice slogan, as both TDP and YSR Congress are in the hands of the upper castes.
BJP MLC and senior leader Somu Veeraraju, who too belongs to the Kapu community, told this newspaper on Saturday that the decision to go with Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena would be taken by the national leadership at the right time.
A spokesman of Jana Sena from Hyderabad said that the Power Star who is currently on a tour of north-coastal Andhra was not bothered about electoral adjustments now.