Why Kapu vote may not go en bloc to TDP-Jana Sena combine in Andhra Pradesh?

AMARAVATHI: The electoral understanding between the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Jana Sena has caused heartburn among aspirants for Assembly tickets from their respective parties.

Though TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu and Jana Sena president Pawan Kalyan have sufficiently cautioned their party leaders to maintain restraint, as there would surely be certain sacrifices in the seats being exchanged in alliance, leaders and cadres of both parties indeed were dismayed at not getting the opportunity.

The TDP-JSP alliance had announced 118 seats so far. The two parties are expecting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also to join the alliance.

The Jana Sena which has predominantly attempted to portray itself as a representative of the Kapu community, which has 15.4 per cent of vote share in Andhra Pradesh, doesn’t find itself enjoying so much of patronage among the voters of the caste group. On umpteen occasions, Pawan Kalyan fumed against people belonging to his own community (Kapus) for not rallying behind him.

As latest as on February 28 at “Jenda” public meeting in Tadepalligudem, Pawan Kalyan said that “even if Jagan commits so many blunders, his people (belonging to his community) support him no matter what. But, you (Kapus, the community I hail from) don’t rally behind me.”

Taunt to Hariram Jogaiah

In an oblique reference to the frequent advices being dished out by former Minister and president of Kapu Samkshema Sena Chegondi Venkata Hariram Jogaiah, the actor-turned-politician said: “We don’t need your advises. Please desist.”

Harirama Jogaiah has been insisting that Pawan Kalyan should demand and take 55 Assembly seats and five Lok Sabha seats from the TDP in the event of an alliance between both the parties. However, Pawan Kalyan had settled for 24 Assembly seats and three Lok Sabha seats.

Even after the alliance was announced, Jogaiah said that Pawan Kalyan should insist on Chandrababu Naidu himself announcing a 2.5 years of term for Pawan Kalyan as the Chief Minister, if the alliance was elected to power. It’s only after such an announcement that Jana Sena leaders and cadres should support the combine and ensure vote transfer between the two parties.

He remarked that why should Kapus support the combine to ensure Chandrababu Naidu and his son Lokesh becoming the Chief Ministers.

He had written many open letters to Pawan Kalyan putting across the aspirations of Kapus about Pawan Kalyan becoming the Chief Minister.

Visibly Jogaiah is upset and disgusted over the seat-sharing arrangement and the series of explanations being reeled out by Pawan Kalyan about his and his party’s weaknesses that led him compulsively to accede to whatever is offered to the party by the TDP.

He put out another simple letter expressing his disgust on Wednesday: “The TDP and the Jana Sena supremos don’t seem to have liked the advices I have offered. It’s their problem (karma). There is nothing that I can do.”

“I wish Jana Sena would not need my support”: Mudragada

Meanwhile, another Kapu patriarch who is well respected in the party as a champion of the Kapus’ cause and former Minister Mudragada Padmanabham dashed off a missive to Pawan Kalyan on Thursday.

“You sent word to me that you would come to Kirlampudi before 2019 elections. Again, you sent word that you would come soon after returning from Ayodhya. I have told you I will join hands with you without any demands and I thought I should do my bit to help all sections of society to take forward the party and make sure that you serve them without anticipating any benefit.

“Entire community strongly felt that both of us should meet and I was prepared to match my step with you by ignoring all my past, problems, insults, aims and aspirations. I expected to bring a new trend in politics of the State and trusted that you are also of the same view. But, unfortunately you have not given that opportunity.”

He further said in the letter: “When Hon. Chandrababu Naidu is in prison, the entire TDP cadres was afraid of coming out and restricted themselves to their respective homes. At that crucial point in time, it’s not a simple thing that you could go and meet him in the prison and assuring him of support. It has amounted to rewriting the history.

“I can vouchsafe for the fact that you are singularly responsible for the soaring of his prestige by many notches. People also yearned for seeing you in an esteemed position. You should have sought 80 seats as part of the seat-sharing adjustment and also the chief minister’s post in the first two years. But, it’s quite disheartening that you could not muster courage to ask for the same.

“I have not asked for money or waited for the appointment of big leaders at their doorstep for positions in my 40 years of political career. I have always prayed to the God that I should never face that kind of a situation.

“Since I am not someone with glamour like you and popularity., I was identified by you as a last-grade person who is rusted which resulted in you unable to come to me even though you promised me to come. Your decisions will not be in your hands. You need to take permissions from different places. I am sure my help is not required for the 24 candidates contesting on behalf of your party. I also pray to God that you should not need my support. All the best.”

With such a strongly worded letter, Padmanabham signed off implying that he would not join hands with the TDP-Jana Sena combine.

Why Jana Sena is piggybacking on TDP?

In fact, Pawan Kalyan had said at the Tadepalligudem public meeting: “the JSP, as a young party, would require a seasoned politician like Nara Chandrababu Naidu who walked out ramrod straight even after the claymore mine blast at Alipiri.”

He said that the Jana Sena did not have the necessary wherewithal and cadre base to fight the elections. That’s why he’s piggybacking on the TDP. He said the strength of his 24 seats was enough to trounce Jagan at the hustings. It was essential to take the support of the TDP and Chandrababu Naidu who had a well-oiled machinery across the State up to booth level to fight the elections. He appealed to Jana Sena cadres to support the TDP wherever the party was contesting and the TDP cadres would support the Jana Sena candidates wherever his party was contesting.

However, fissures surfaced between the two parties at different places. Chandrababu Naidu had to take up an exercise to mollify the sulking leaders wherever the seats were given to the Jana Sena. In fact, senior leaders like Alapati Rajendra Prasad and others were jolted with the decision.

Similarly, Jana Sena leaders too did not conceal their ire in constituencies like Tanuku and Jaggampeta. In fact, Tanuku Jana Sena aspirant Vidivada Ramachandra Rao and his supporters gheraoed Jana Sena leader Nadendla Manohar after the seat-sharing was announced.

Against this background of simmering dissent among the leaders and cadres of both parties and Kapu patriarchs’ angst against Pawan Kalyan, the vote transfer between the parties is posing a severe challenge.

Also, there is a possibility of many senior leaders from the TDP entering the fray as rebels. This situation is already evolving in Kakinada rural Assembly seat.

Things would hot up if the BJP takes a call to join the alliance. For now, grapevine has it that the BJP is demanding 50 Assembly seats and 10 Lok Sabha seats from the TDP as part of the alliance. Will Chandrababu Naidu accede to this demand has yet to be seen.