March 12 – Charity begins at home and in Chiranjeevi’s case, campaigning for the Congress should have begun at home.
The Union Minister of State for Tourism, who has been appointed the Congress party’s campaign committee chief in the residuary state of Andhra Pradesh, has competition in-house, with his brother Pawan Kalyan launching his own party, Janasena.
The 42-year-old actor will unveil his plans formally on Friday at a press conference, hoping his first day first show will be a super hit.
For many months now, reports of a fallout between Chiranjeevi and Pawan have been doing the rounds though both sides denied it.
But obviously, the old chemistry, where Pawan was part of Chiranjeevi’s Praja Rajyam, was missing.
‘Powerstar’ Pawan obviously somewhere felt that his ‘megastar’ brother had not done the right thing by first fighting the elections against the Congress and within months merging the PRP with the ruling party for the sake of some ministerial berths.
Pawan who recently starred in Gabbar Singh – the Telugu remake of Salman Khan’s Dabangg – reportedly felt that was a betrayal of the mandate given to the PRP which garnered a 16 per cent vote share and 18 assembly seats.
Sources in the Telugu Desam Party say Pawan has been in touch with the party bosses, keen to explore a partnership. The actor reportedly wanted the TDP to support his candidature as an independent candidate, something Chandrababu Naidu was averse to. But Naidu was more than keen to admit Pawan into the TDP because that would be killing several birds with one stone.
One, Naidu would be able to cock a snook at Chiranjeevi, whose PRP played a part in splitting the anti-Congress vote in 2009 and enabled Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy a second term in office.
Two, Pawan has an incredible fan following that could help the TDP and Naidu would not have to depend solely on the star power of actor NTR Junior (grandson of the original N.T. Rama Rao).
Three, Pawan would also bring to the kitty the Kapu community vote that is 27 per cent of the electorate in the Seemandhra region.
Though his new party rules out admission into the TDP, Janasena could still have a tactical understanding with Naidu’s party.
The two sides are expected to meet over the weekend to discuss ways to work together.
Once bitten twice shy, Naidu is extremely wary of the likes of Pawan and Kiran Kumar Reddy floating their outfits just weeks before the elections and wants to neutralise their presence to the maximum extent possible.
But Pawan is not a personality in the NTR mould. Known to be aloof and temperamental, the actor operates within a small group of close associates. His two marriages and divorce and a reported third marriage too would give his political critics ready below the belt ammunition to attack him with. In a land where filmstars migrate to the political arena as soon as the demand for their call sheets goes down, Pawan stands out as he is still a star who sells.
He has done only 19 films in 18 years but a large number of them were big hits. Outside of Andhra Pradesh, his calling card is Chiranjeevi but within Andhra Pradesh, Pawan Kalyan stands his own ground.
Meanwhile, the actor has been busy with the pre-production work on Gabbar Singh 2 and the Telugu version of Akshay Kumar-Paresh Rawal’s Oh My God with actor Venkatesh.
If his political career is a dud, Oh My God will certainly be an expression Pawan Kalyan may end up mouthing.
-India Today
