Pawan Kalyan who is in North Andhra tour currently maid a statement that it was his biggest mistake of not contesting in the 2014 elections. He told, if he had contested, even if his Jansena had got 5-10 seats in the 2014 elections, he would have ensured discussion in AP assembly itself and the corruption and failures of TDP government.

As part of his Praja porata Yatra, he was addressing public meetings held in Pudur, Madagala and Narsipatnam in Visakhapatnam district and he made these comments in that public meeting. He also countered the statement of Chandrababu Naidu that “ Pawan has changed in recent times”. Pawan reply saying, he did not change but it was Chandrababu Naidu who changed his stand on special status for 36 times so far.

This is not first time Pawan Kalyan making this kind of statement. Earlier also he told that he should have contested in 2014 elections so that he would have some representation in AP assembly. However, whether Pawan knows or not, it was for his good that he did not contest the elections. Had he really contested in 2014 and won 5 to 10 seats, guessing what would have happened by now is not very difficult. Along with 20 MLAs of YSR CP, probably these 5 to 10 MLAs also might have joined TDP by now. Or even worse, those MLAs might have merged the party with TDP by now, similar to how TDP merged with TRS in Telangana. Had this happened it would have been more humiliating than PRP experience. Probably , by knowing this only Pawan Kalyan did not contest for any seats in 2014 as he was not in a position to win major chunk or even demand more seats that time.

Despite all this he is now saying, his party should have contested in 2014 and win 5-10 seats, only to give impression to people that his party will strive for solving issues of people even if it doesn’t come to power. This stand is exactly opposite to what opposition leader Jagan Mohan Reddy’s stand who has been saying he will be able to solve the problems of people once he comes to power. Moreover, YSRCP MLAs have not been attending assembly for sometime and they may not attend any more sessions until elections. So, by giving this kind of statements, Pawan Kalyan is subtly targeting YSRCP. Also by mentioning 5-10 seats, he is trying to project himself as someone not a power monger.

We will have to wait and see whether this strategy helps him or not

-ZURAN

We have discussed in the previous articles that there has been a debate on how much vote percentage Janasena is going to have. We have seen in previous article that PRP had 19.19% vote bank in 175 constituencies of AP in 2009 ( https://www.telugu360.com/how-much-vote-bank-does-janasena-have-part-2/ ). We will see the arguments for and against the point – Janasena will get more than this 19.19 % or not.

What Janasena opponents say:

But there is no guarantee that this 19.19% vote bank of PRP will shift to Janasena because of below reasons:

First time benefit of doubt: When Chiranjeevi’s party founded people had interest to give it a chance for the new party, but after seeing PRP debacle, people lost interest in such part time parties and this will work against Janasena

Not all 16.22% because of Chiranjeevi: Even though Chiranjeevi got 16.22% vote bank (total AP), not all is because of Chiranjeevi. Leaders like Shobha Nagireddy, Katasani, Ganta (1st place), Tammineni Sitharam, Jyothula Nehru (2nd place) – all of them got votes because of their own image and cadre rather than Chiranjeevi. If such big leaders don’t join Janasena, Janasena’s vote% will be definitely less than PRP.

Leaders are now more careful: When PRP launched, many big leaders from TDP and INC joined PRP and most of them became politically extinct later. Some leaders like actor Krishnam Raju later opined, joining PRP was a historical mistake. Because of that experience, now big leaders are more careful in taking decision of joining new parties. Without leaders, Pawan can’t run the show alone for so long and there will be drop in total vote % too.

Pawan character: Pawan is inconsistent compared to Chiranjeevi. None knows how he behaves. This may hamper party prospects. Matured voter will re-think before voting for Janasena.

Finally, Janasena opponents conclude that – It is silly to think all those who voted for PRP will vote again for Janasena and people can’t be cheated again and again and so Janasena may end-up max 5 to 10% vote bank that too because of the fans from his caste and youth fans from other castes.

Janasena fans say:

Fans of Janasena, on the other hand, predict more vote% than PRP 2009 experience. They say below reasons

Sticky vote bank of PRP: People who voted for Chiranjeevi were all hard-core fans and they voted PRP despite knowing PRP will not win. They voted despite all the negative propaganda of media on PRP. This vote bank is “sticky” vote bank and will not disappear except for 1 or 2%

No YSR: Many opine YSR was very strong in 2009 because of Arogya sri and other scemes and so many fans of Chiranjeevi too voted for INC in 2009. But now CBN is not that strong (reportedly) and Jagan is no YSR and this helps janasena get its due share in vote bank and so it will be definitely more vote % than PRP.

Pawan vs Chiru: Pawan got the image of genuine person unlike Chiranjeevi who got the image of “commercial person”. This is evident from the fact that when PRP formed, many people from film industry including – Dasari, Jeevitha-Rajasekhar, Mohan Babu, Narasimha Raju, Tammareddy, Natti Kumar, and many more lambasted Chiranjeevi on various aspects. On the other hand, Pawan is getting appreciation from many in the industry especially for his character and helping nature. Moreover Chiranjeevi had no knowledge on issues but Pawan worked on issues like Uddanam that helped him gain good image

Bifurcation and Kapu factor: Bifurcation helped change caste equations. In united AP, Telangana region had more BC population and coastal region had more Kapu population. But bifurcation disturbed this balance and now AP has high % of Kapu caste and this may help Pawan and Janasena. Kapu vote bank may tilt result this time and it is assessed, Kapu impact on final result will be even more this time compared to 2009. BJP leader Manikyala Rao recently commented that 80% of Kapu voters are with Pawan now. In 2009, most of the kapu voters did not go with PRP because of various reasons like Polavaram, YSR factor, Kapu icons like Dasari opposing Chiru etc. But no numbers on how many Kapu voters

PRP seems to have become an asset rather than liability as Pawan seems to have learnt from PRP mistakes. So far he didn’t have any major self-goal. He is slowly but rightly building his base.

Conclusion: While Janasena opponents rubbish Pawan getting anything more than 5 – 10% votes and not more than 15-20 seats, Janasena fans predict more than 20% vote bank and expect him to become King maker like JDS Kumaraswamy with good number of seats in north andhra and Godavari districts.

Click here of How much vote bank does Janasena have? ( Part-1)

But politics are too dynamic to analyze 1 year before elections. We will have to monitor the events, twists and turns in next one year and see which leaders are joining Janasena. We may get closer numbers by next January or February.

-ZURAN

We have discussed in the previous article that there has been a debate on how much vote percentage Janasena is going to have. In a recent interview, Pawan told, he had 18% vote bank in 2014 and that helped TDP pull it off as Janasena did not contest but only supported TDP. ( https://www.telugu360.com/how-much-vote-bank-does-janasena-have-part-1/ )

Any discussion on Janasena tend to get comparison with PRP. Political opponents always say, Janasena will also end up another disaster like PRP. Political supporters of Janasena always say PRP got good vote percentage but votes did not properly convert into seats. PRP got 17% vote bank but only 18 seats out of 294 seats. Had this 17% votes converted to seats, it would have been 50 seats for PRP. But parties with no cadre and new political parties always will have this difference between vote percentage and seat percentage.

Let us use this PRP vote bank data to help assess Janasena vote bank. Whether people agree or not, both Chiranjeevi and Pawan got huge hype for their parties because of 2 factors – one is, they belong highly populous Kapu caste and people have tendency to vote based on caste equations in India, second they have huge fan following among youth belonging to other castes too and voting behavior of youth always confused psephologists. Because of this similarities, PRP voting pattern and result definitely give us sufficient clues on Janasena vote bank.

PRP performance is as below in 2009. Out of 175 assembly seats (excluding Telangana region):

PRP stood at 1st Place: 16 seats (18 seats out of 294 including Telangana)

PRP stood at 2nd Place: 27 seats

PRP stood at 3rd place: 128 seats

If we see vote percentage for PRP including Telangana, stats are as below:

Total votes polled in AP (including Telangana) for PRP: 68,20,845

Total votes polled in AP (including Telangana) for all parties: 42058446

PRP vote percentage in entire state 6820845/42058446 = 16.2175

PRP fans and Chiranjeevi always say, PRP got 17% vote bank and 70 lakh votes. Probably they did “too much of rounding-off” and Trivikram might have got the definition of “round figure” from them and used that concept of round-figure in his Khaleja movie. Just kidding. To be specific, PRP got 68,20,845 votes ( 1,79,155 less than 70 lakh) and 16.2175 %

Click here for part-3 -How much vote bank does Janasena have?

If we see vote percentage for PRP excluding Telangana, stats are as below:

Total votes polled in AP (excluding Telangana region) for PRP: 48,41,918

Total votes polled in AP (excluding Telangana) for all parties: 25223976

PRP vote percentage in AP (excluding Telangana) 48,41,918/2,52,23976 = 19.196

There might be approximations in the decimal fractions of this percentage, as some postal votes are not considered.

We will see in next article whether this 19.19 will be retained for Janasena or not.

-ZURAN

Pawan Kalyan who is on the 8th day of his Srikakulam Tour has once again lashed out at the AP State Government, and CM Nara Chandrababu Naidu. In a special press meet that saw intellectuals from various sections of the society, Pawan Kalyan demanded that there should be ‘political accountability’. He went on to make stark comments on both TDP and Congress party.

‘Neither Chandrababu nor the Congress party leaders have faced humiliation. The people who are migrating are facing humiliation. In the past, many people who met me, shared their pain and agony, after they choose to migrate from their homeland, in search of livelihood.

It is because of CBN’s policies, we are facing this kind of problems. There is absolutely no ‘political accountability’ in the state. We need to go with a well-structured plan for the development of Uttharandhra, and Rayalaseema regions. Chandrababu Naidu, who developed Hyderabad, at the cost of the entire state, is doing the same mistake by developing only Amaravati’, said Pawan Kalyan.

It looks like the war of words between Pawan Kalyan and Chandrababu are likely to continue till the polls.