LS polls: Tug-of-war between Telugu Desam and BJP for a piece of Pawan power

Hyderabad: A series of developments that took place after the much publicised Narendra Modi-Pawan Kalyan meet in Ahmedabad indicated that the Jana Sena founder is caught between pro and anti Telugu Desam forces.

In quick succession, two statements made their way to the media on Sunday, one stating that Pawan Kalyan was not considering any alliance with any regional party, including the TD, as of now and the other by the actor’s media managers stating that “any information to the media would be solely released from Jana Sena president Pawan Kalyan’s office only”.

Inquiries by Deccan Chronicle revealed that the first statement was a fallout of a section of state BJP leaders’ strategy to keep the TD at a distance from the BJP and restrict the friendship to the BJP prime ministerial candidate and the Jana Sena founder. The second statement, obviously, was made following pressure from a lobby working closely with Pawan Kalyan as part of a larger political game plan to ensure victory for TD chief N. Chandrababu Naidu.

Sources said that the statement, written on a white paper, reached the media sometime after Somu Veera Raju, a senior BJP leader from Seemandhra and bête noire of veteran leader in the party M. Venkaiah Naidu, and a senior RSS functionary acting as Mr Modi’s representative in the state, held a closed door meeting with the actor in the afternoon.

The electronic media flashed the statement attributing to Mr Veera Raju that Pawan Kalyan was not thinking of alliances with regional parties yet.