Is it an action replay of the tail wagging the dog or a show of ventriloquism, if not a puppetry? Chandrababu Naidu is too tall a political personality for rabble-rousers to take on him.
Either you meekly submit before his astute political acumen or stay diametrically opposite him to challenge his experience and political dexterity, if you have a stature rivalling him. But, you cannot be with him and elbow him out in the equation. Neither math nor chemistry will come to your rescue.
There is no middle path. It is only whether you are in the outer orbit or the inner orbit of the helmsman in Andhra Pradesh polity is what the question is all about, if you are with him.
When “power star” Pawan Kalyan has called on the Chief Minister in Vijayawada, it has a background. If one jogs the memory, Naidu had gone only once even by taking a detour to meet the actor at the latter’s residence. That’s for his own political advantage. Ever since, the actor made his entry on to the political theatre in his new avatar with Naidu as the ‘script writer and director’.[pullquote position=”right”]Naidu, when in need, knows how to attract the critical mass. This was what he had done by wooing Pawan Kalyan on to his side. The actor was allowed to think independently, but what all those who gloated about this fact missed out was Naidu held the “controls of action” with himself.[/pullquote]
The Thursday’s meeting is all too well-known and its content is already in public domain. But the ‘censored’ part is what is more intriguing than the one that is released for public consumption.
First let’s take a look into the background: Chandrababu Naidu tamed Pawan Kalyan who was riding the wave of popularity during the run-up for 2014 elections. Pawan Kalyan, youngest brother of Megastar Chiranjeevi, staged a come back of sorts in the Telugu tinsel world after almost a decade-long hiatus. The social media ‘leaks’ followed by mainstream media’s speculation, at which Chandrababu Naidu’s army of publicists are very deft, created the stage for the meeting of the Telugu Desam supremo with the “power star”.
Rest is history.
Ever since the TDP came to power in the truncated State of Andhra Pradesh in June 2014, Pawan Kalyan has been giving an impression to the electors that he holds the remote control for the government. All that he may have miscalculated was that remote controls are rendered defunct with Chandrababu Naidu who is not fitted with receptor sensors.
He trusts more on senses than sensors. For, he knows how powerful remote controls can get. After all, he was himself one for more than a decade when NTR was the boss of the TDP. He also has the experience of neutralising another powerful remote control in the form of Lakshmi Parvathi. To accomplish this Herculean task, he had to take on the mighty NTR with thorough understanding on how much risky it was if the palace coup had misfired. Stars favoured him and his meticulous planning and execution worked wonders.
Naidu, when in need, knows how to attract the critical mass. This was what he had done by wooing Pawan Kalyan on to his side. The actor was allowed to think independently, but what all those who gloated about this fact missed out was Naidu held the “controls of action” with himself. A year and half passed. Numerous challenges have surfaced. Gains and losses of inheritance apart, Naidu has a huge task cut out for him to build a new State from being called a residuary province.
Well, let’s come to the current turn of events. Pawan Kalyan strategically stayed away from the foundation laying ceremony of Amaravathi, the proposed greenfield Capital city of Andhra Pradesh. Now, he wangled an invite from Naidu and made use of the opportunity to travel by a special chartered aircraft.
The bang with which he had launched his Janasena has now apparently ended up in a whimper. His postulates for public life have gone awry. Now, he says his party will be in the race in 2019 elections. Race? For what? Having played second fiddle to Naidu’s party now, who will Pawan Kalyan fight in 2019 elections? Using the “star”, minus the epithet of “power”, as the mascot, the Chief Minister had already nursed Pawan Kalyan’s original constituency. Can Pawan wrest it from him?
At the most, if at all they are disillusioned with Naidu and the TDP, they may go adrift towards the Opposition (in this case, the YSR Congress which also has been nursing the community). But, Chiranjeevi and his brother, who are rubbing shoulders with two diametrically opposite political formations, may not steer the boats they are sailing to their logical shores.
[pullquote position=”left”]Pawan’s lack of vision — when he cited that he was neither an MLA nor an MP to sit in a dharna or meet the Prime Minister to demand special status — diminished his stature and naturally his political future.[/pullquote]By deploying BJP minister Kamineni Srinivas, the Chief Minister has also sent across a message to the Central leadership of the saffron brigade that he is control of everything in his state and that the BJP has to rein in the few of its leaders like Somu Veerraju, Kanna Lakshminarayana and others. Naidu can, after all, beat the BJP with its own stick.
Pawan Kalyan, by announcing that he’s no longer a prince, but he is a pauper and that he doesn’t have necessary financial muscle to float a political party and build it from the scratch, has sent a message across the people that he is neither strategically formidable , nor is he politically dependable.
These words naturally seemed to have been spoken by the political ventriloquist Chandrababu Naidu in absentia. As regards the special status to Andhra Pradesh, Pawan Kalyan seemed to have preferred political despondency to powerful confrontation.
His taunt to the BJP that it would prove very costly to the Centre, if it did not act on the aspiration/promise of special status or package, exactly demoed the puppetry by the TDP with the strings pulled from behind the scene by Chandrababu Naidu himself.
Pawan’s lack of vision — when he cited that he was neither an MLA nor an MP to sit in a dharna or meet the Prime Minister to demand special status — diminished his stature and naturally his political future. The issues of Bauxite mining and farmer’s woes in the new Capital region are no more than scraping of the surface of a drum with a hollow bottom.
As derided by the character of Tanikella Bharani in the Pawan Kalyan-starrer blockbuster Gabbar Singh, has he ended up already as a “rubber singh” ? After all, coming from an industry where sequels always flopped at the box office, if Pawan Kalyan is harping his political career on the fate of the Gabbar Singh sequel, Sardar Gabbar Singh, the people of Andhra Pradesh will be engulfed in a sense of déjà vu – they saw how much of a hit Shankar Dada Zindabad was.
