Pawan ‘man of the match’ in NDA’s stupendous show

Vijayawada: If the just concluded Assembly polls in Andhra Pradesh can be equated to a sporting contest, it will be Jana Sena Party chief Pawan Kalyan who could walk away with ‘man of the match’ award for ensuring NDA’s stupendous show.

Despite humiliating personal defeats at Bhimavaram and Gajuwaka Assembly constituencies in the 2019 polls, Pawan relentlessly strived to forge an alliance between his party, the N Chandrababu Naidu-led TDP and the BJP.

This bore fruits. As part of a seat-sharing deal among NDA partners, TDP contested from 144 Assembly and 17 Lok Sabha constituencies while BJP put out candidates in six Parliamentary and 10 Assembly seats.

Jana Sena contested two Lok Sabha and 21 Assembly seats and is leading in all the constituencies. And the NDA was in the process of securing comfortable victories in both. It was Pawan, the actor-politician who first announced his party’s intention to have a post-poll alliance with TDP at a prison where the former Chief Minister and TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu was lodged following his arrest in the “Skill development scam case” in September last year. Pawan’s announcement uplifted TDP morale and subsequent events drew BJP into the fold, bolstering the alliance. Founded in the run-up to 2014 polls, Pawan provided support from outside to the TDP-BJP alliance in AP.

Later, Jana Sena contested the polls in 2019 and had won only one Assembly seat back then in the form of Rapaka Varaprasad from Razole. While in 2024 polls, Pawan’s party achieved 100% success by winning all the 21 Assembly seats which the party contested and the two Lok Sabha seats.

Playing the pivotal role of avoiding vote erosion among the NDA partners, Pawan almost played the key role of a kingmaker in the 2024 simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.

Pawan who first entered active politics in 2008 through his elder brother Chiranjeevi’s erstwhile Praja Rajyam, finally tasted electoral victory. It took exactly a decade for Janasena to make deep inroads in politics.