INDIA PROFILE 4 Mins Read

Pawan Kalyan | The ‘power star’ of politics
Published / Updated- June 23, 2024 02:32 IST

SUMIT BHATTACHARJEE

The actor-turned-politician’s bet to bring the BJP and the TDP into an alliance, along with his JSP, has paid off as the NDA swept the State in recent electionsIn the 2024 elections in Andhra Pradesh, actor-turned-politician Konidala Pawan Kalyan, the founding president of the Jana Sena Party, proved that he is no ‘run-of-the-mill’ politician.
He exhibited his tenacity to hang on to the game of politics and hit back at his critics by scoring a 100% strike rate. His party candidates won all the 21 Assembly seats that they had contested and also secured two Lok Sabha seats, with huge majority.

Mr. Kalyan announced with a bang that he is here to stay. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was so impressed by his show of strength that in one of the meetings he referred to Pawan as ‘Yeh Pawan nahi, yeh Andhee hai’ (’He is not wind’, as Pawan in Hindi means wind, ‘He is storm’).
One among the top matinee idols in Telugu cinema, Mr. Kalyan’s political career has been a chequered one ever since he launched his JSP on March 14, 2014. He faced setbacks, but he never quit, as his elder brother, K. Chiranjeevi, a mega star in Telugu cinema, had done. Chiranjeevi had launched his Praja Rajyam Party in 2008, but quit the game after his first outing and merged his party with the Congress.
Though Mr. Kalyan had launched his party in 2014, he did not contest that year’s General and Assembly elections. He lent support to the National Democratic Alliance of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The NDA came to power in the residual State of Andhra, immediately after the bifurcation of the State.
But in 2019, he quit the NDA and went to the polls in an alliance with Left parties. The JSP could win just one seat with Mr. Kalyan himself losing in the two seats he contested. But the actor-turned politician did not lose hope. This time, he joined the NDA and laid the ground work for the alliance’s victory in the State.In an earlier interview to The Hindu, Mr. Kalyan had stated he was drawn towards politics from his college days and was deeply inspired by the tall leaders from the Left wing such as Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and Charu Majumdar. His vision document, ‘Ism’, released at the launch of his party in 2014, appears to be rooted in Left ideology.
Considered to be the ‘power star’ in the Telugu film industry, Mr. Kalyan, after the 2019 setback, worked tirelessly to get to the masses. His targeted campaign to address the issues of Uddanam region in Srikakulam, where chronic kidney disease has become an endemic health crisis, his outright support for the farmers of Amaravati, who were agitating against the YSR Congress government’s decision to shift the capital from the city, and numerous other campaigns moved him closer to the masses.
Later he launched a state-wide yatra in his customised vehicle ‘Varahi’, aimed at strengthening the JSP’s connect with the voters.
Turning point
But the turning point was a meeting he had with Nara Chandrababu Naidu, the national president of the TDP and the current Chief Minister, at the Rajahmundry Central Jail in September, 2023. Mr. Naidu was then in remand over corruption allegations.
Outside the jail, while addressing a press conference, Mr. Kalyan announced the tie-up with the TDP.“I have been thinking all this while whether the TDP and Janasena must come together ahead of elections.
I am in the NDA. It is my prayer that to fight against the atrocities of the YSRCP, the Janasena and the TDP must come together in the upcoming elections,” he said.
He was clear that only an alliance could bring the rule of the YSRCP to an end. It is believed that Mr. Kalyan played the bridge between the TDP and the BJP to forge the three-party alliance.
He also admitted that the JSP alone could not form the government. Nor did the party have the financial strength or backing to contest all 175 seats.He settled for 21 seats and his focus was to win all of them.
This gamble paid off. In the assembly elections, the NDA alliance won 164 seats, including the JSP’s 21, while the YSRCP’s tally sank to 11 from 141 five years ago.
A political novice 10 years ago, Pawan Kalyan is today the Deputy Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh.