Andhra Politics - Congress ;TDP;PRP;TRS

Film actor and President of Yuva Rajyam, Pawan Kalyan had a bitter experience in the district of Karimnagar. Pawan had started his political campaign for his brother’s political party in the Telangana region and chose to start from the Karimnagar district. The first day of his tour was successful but on the second day he suffered a minor electric shock.

Pawan was delivering a speech to the public at Husnabad by standing on his vehicle which was moving at a slow pace. He was so engrossed in his speech that he did not realize that there was an electric cable over his head and as the vehicle moved forward, the cable touched Pawan’s head who then suffered a minor shock. Fortunately, he received medical help immediately and within minutes, Pawan recovered and continued his tour, this time a bit more careful!

After Chandra Babu sucessfully ’snatched’ away all the coalition possibilities from the Praja Rajyam party, President Chiranjeevi made a statement that they would go alone into the contest and win the elections all by themselves. He acknowledged that he tried to coalate with other parties in the state and that the discussions failed.

Talking about TRS, he said that the discussions about a possible coalition were smooth until yesterday when TRS suddenly decided to join hands with TDP. He also criticized the communists for joining with TDP.

He then said that he is confident that his party can win without the support of any other party. He then cited the situation of TDP in 1983 when it was established. He said that, the communists denied to join with TDP at that time, yet NTR registered a huge victory in the elections. Chiranjeevi hopes that he can do a NTR in the next elections.

Newly established political party, Praja Rajyam is completely isolated in the state now. PRP has been trying to form a coalition with the political parties in the state, other than TDP and Congress. Their initial attempts to coalate with the Communists appeared to be fruitful but were in vain, when the communists have finally decided to go with Telugu Desam.

Since then, PRP has been trying to get along with Telanga Rashtra Samithi. However, President or TRS has given a clear signal yesterday that even he would be going along with Telugu Desam in the next elections. Though not officially declared, KCR made a comment which suggested that his party has decided to stay together with TDP. He said that time has arrived for himself and Chandra Babu to work together again.

This decision has completed the isolation of PRP. It is evident now that, PRP must stand alone in the next general elections. Chandra Babu has shown his political diligence by attracting both the Communists and TRS towards his party.

Film actor and President of newly established Praja Rajyam Party might contest in the next general election from Tirupathi constituency. This was not officially confirmed by the PRP officials, but was learnt by the media from reliable sources.

The inaugural function of PRP was organized at Tirupathi which received a ‘never-before’ response from the public, which might be one of the reasons for Chiranjeevi’s decision. Apart from this, Chiranjeevi is known to be a firm believer in astrology and it is learnt that a priest from Chennai suggested Chiranjeevi to contest from a place with religious importance which would be advantageous for Chiranjeevi. So, the obvious decision would be to contest in Tirupathi.

Though not officially declared, it was almost confirm that Chiru would contest from Tirupathi and after listening to this news, Chiru fans and other party members expressed their joy by burning fire crackers near PRP party office and wished Chiranjeevi good luck.

President of Praja Rajyam Youth Wing, Pawan Kalyan has delivered his first public political speech yesterday and made extremely severe allegations on the leaders of the ruling party. Unlike his brother Chiranjeevi, Pawan chose to make cutting remarks on the ruling party and made allegations on each and every leader in Congress by name. This is the first time that any one from PRP has accused the ruling party and it appears to be a strategical move by PRP to use Pawan to attack other parties and keep the President Chiranjeevi aloof.

However, these severe comments by Pawan attracted a huge protest from the Congress youth wing. Around 40 members from Congress gathered at PRP office to demonstrate their protest against Pawan’s comments. They have decided to go in the Gandhian way of protesting by giving flowers to Pawan and indeed brought flowers along with them. However, the scene changed after they reached PRP office and the two groups (PRP and Congress) had a clash. Finally the Police had to come into the scene to control the mob and sent the Congress members away from PRP office.

Pawan talking later, said that he has the right to make allegations and asked the Congress to freely demonstrate their protest in public places. He said that the Congress should not have come to their party office which can be considered an attack on their office.

In a country with close to 40% illiterates, voting symbol is very important for the political parties to reach the public. Unfortunately the newly established party, Praja Rajyam is facing a problem in this respect. This party is not yet assigned an election symbol by the Election Commission of India and with the elections impending in a few months, the party is trying hard to get a symbol. In case the party does not get a symbol, the contestants must use a random symbol allocated bu the EC and the party will just be having 14days to publicize this symbol.

SO, the party officials have met the Election Comminssion yesterday to discuss the matter. PRP is just a registered party and not a recognized party by the Election Commission and thus the EC need not give this party a symbol. A party gets recognized only after it exhibits its public support by participating in at least one election. However, there is not rule that forbids the EC from allocating a symbol to non-recognized parties. PRP wants the EC to use this power and allott a symbol. In 2004, the EC has assigned the ‘car’ symbol to TRS which was then a non-recognized party. On similar lines, PRP wants EC to allott a symbol and is hoping a favorable response from the EC. In case the EC denies to allott asymbol, PRP is planning to approach the Supreme Court.

In response to a petition filed against the road shows organized by political parties, the High court of Andhra Pradesh issued a stay order on the road shows last month. The petition was filed after a few people died in the stampede in Praja Rajyam’s road shows. The court was serious about the negligence of the political parties and ordered them not to organize any road shows.

The parties have chosen other means of approaching people and started organizing public meetings in various districts. However, the parties continued their deliberations with the court and finally with the intervention fo the DGP of Andhra, the court has decided to release the stay orders and let the parties continue with their road shows.

The  Police Department has submitted some directives for organizing the road shows and the court was satisfied by these directives. The court said that the parties can organize road shows following the directives given by the Police Department and said that the Police will be responsible for ensuring that the Road Shows follow these directives. The court also allowed the parties to file a petition, if they find any of the directives infeasible.

So, now the parties in the state will be back on roads obstructing the traffic and daily lives of people. The life of stay orders is most advantageous for PRP which had been actively organizing road shows before the stay orders were issued.

After Megastar Chiranjeevi established a political party in the state, the remaining parties have started their trials to get some film actors into their parties to counter Chiranjeevi’s cine glamor. Chandra Babu has already succeeded in roping all the Nandamuri heroes into his party and could succeed in containing the migrations from TDP to Chiranjeevi’s party. Next in the queue was the ruling party, Congress.

Veteran actor Krishna had been in the Congress party for long. However, he doesn’t have the charisma to attract people and this Congress tried to get his son Mahesh Babu into politics. Mahesh is the most successful actor among the young actors in the state and commands a huge following and so was the choice of Congress.

However, it is being reported that Mahesh is not at all interested in getting into politics, in spite of his father’s request. He considers himself too young for politics and wants to concentrate on his film career. His uncle Adi Seshagiri Rao talked to the media yesterday and declared that Mahesh will not participate in the campaign for congress.

PRP, after giving up on the road shows because of the stay order by the High Court of Andhra Pradesh, has embarked into public meetings in various districts. First in the row was Nalgonda and to everyone’s surprise the public turnout was very disappointing to the PRP leaders. There were hardly any people (when compared to the previous roadshows) and it was reported that the PRP leaders were shocked to see such a scenario, the first time after their party was established.

The leaders of the party immediately convened an unofficial meeting to discuss why this happened, but could not get to any decisive answer. They tried to pacify themselves that the lack of public response is because of improper publicity and bad weather. However, a few leaders agreed that public is quickly losing interest in this party which solely banked on the charisma of the party president, Dr. Chiranjeevi.

PRP had always been uttering the word ‘change’ but couldn’t release their manifesto till date. They were no clear policies in the party which created a rather ‘timid’ image among the people. Its high time that the PRP leadership gets into the public with clear policies and manifesto instead of trying to play safe by simple using the word ‘change’. People got to know what the ‘change’ you will bring, if they are to vote you to power.

As expected the ruling party has resorted to follow its ‘nasty political’ strategies to control the president of Praja Rajyam Party who had been drawing huge crowds to his meetings. The government has ordered the Police Department of Nalgonda district to file a case against Chiranjeevi on the charges of ‘public nuisance’ for organizing meetings after 10:00 pm which is against the Supreme Court directive.

On the 20th of December, Chiranjeevi scheduled various meetings all over the district and this was quite late by the time he reached the final meeting at the district headquarters. Not to disappoint the people who were waiting for him for hours, Chiranjeevi continued the meeting even after mid night and this irked the Police who obstructed the meeting. True, Chiranjeevi  violated the rules. But what was the Police Department doing when Congress and TDP organized similar meetings late in the nights. This was being seen as a move to contain PRP.

Apart from Chiranjeevi several other local leaders were also charged with public nuisance case. Now Congress had successfully caused problems to Chinrajeevi’s meetings. But from now on, Congress itself should never organize any meetings after 10:00pm. Let is see how far Congress can abide by this self imposed rule.