Pawan to play 2nd fiddle to BJP in TS

Political developments in both the Telugu States are getting curiouser by the day. In AP, since the arrest of TDP supreme CBN, the rank and file of the party appears leaderless and rudderless. Many people feel that Jagan will ultimately reap political benefits in this situation, while political pundits think the CBN and the TDP will have the last laugh.

These experts feel that the entire CBN arrest drama is the brain child of the powers-that-be at the Centre and it is meant to engineer a sympathy wave for the TDP and to defame Jagan who appears to be redoudtable and invincible to his political opponents. And a part of this game plan is to make Pawan Kalyan a key player. As CBN has been doing his time, Pawan has usurped for himself a big and Mosaic role to lead both his party and the TDP. It is at once a challenging and daunting role for a person who is politically still wet behind the ears.

Like in AP, in Telangana also the BJP has decided to use Pawan and his popularity for their advantage. It is a hard fact that in Telangana, Pawan can only invoke his movie popularity power as he has neither political power nor the cadre here. In other words Pawan has to play a second fiddle by adding his movie glamour to political gamble of the BJP. This time around the people of Telangana may witness unprecedented violence in the elections, forcing them to give a split verdict and get for themselves a coalition government. Here also Pawan's power play works rather to some extent.

– M Somasekhar Prasad, Hyderabad