After creating much sound and fury, actor Pawan Kalyan has gone into intermission mode. The Tirupati and Kakinada meetings saw him go hammer and tongs at the BJP but now the Powerstar reportedly has shut himself up to write a book. Maybe the idea is to get some fresh ideas for his political future as opposed to the `stale’ laddoos he alleged the BJP had handed over to Andhra Pradesh.
His first book titled `Ism’ came out two years back and reflected his ideology. This one titled `Nenu Manam Janam’ will release next year and will talk about his ideas and thoughts. But the question everyone is asking is whether the BJP and TDP closing ranks over special category status forced Pawan to backtrack for the moment. Chandrababu Naidu though for the record, wants SCS but is happy if the money given to the state as part of special package is good enough.
But the BJP is extremely unhappy with Pawan for the manner in which he tore into Union minister Venkaiah Naidu, easily the tallest BJP leader from the two Telugu-speaking states. The party also has realised that Pawan, a massive crowd-puller has dented BJP’s image badly in Andhra Pradesh, almost reducing it to an object of ridicule. Most in the party are clueless as to why Pawan decided to burn his bridges with the BJP. Was it a case of a bruised ego that he was not kept in the loop about any decision post the victory in 2014? All said and done, everyone including Pawan himself, know his contribution to the TDP-BJP alliance win two years back.
BJP leaders admit it has shot itself in the foot. They say that when Pawan Kalyan referred to “north leaders” looking down upon any demand coming from south India, it was politically stupid to field Siddharth Nath Singh to criticise the actor in turn.
Singh, a national secretary of the BJP, called Pawan the “third rotten laddoo” after the YSRC and the Congress. Some leaders of the Andhra BJP are upset with Singh and say it would have been better to field a SC/ST leader from south India to take on Pawan to take care of the sensitive caste equations.
Comparatively, the TDP has played its cards well. Chandrababu Naidu said he could understand Pawan Kalyan’s angst while Union minister Sujana Choudhary spoke of the package as a good offer. Keeping his feet in both boats is an old Naidu strategy, that has served him well on most occasions.
Pawan Kalyan on his own is unlikely to achieve much but in his first two outings, he has certainly rendered the BJP retired hurt in Andhra Pradesh. What he does next will depend on the script he will write for himself.
