Telugu Desam roping in Pawan Kalyan to counter Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy onslaught
VIJAYAWADA: At a time when YSR Congress government led by Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has started reviewing several major works and schemes initiated by the previous Telugu Desam regime to find out lapses and to take the culprits to task, Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan is attending a meeting organised by the Telugu Association of North America held in Washington in the US, possibly because the TD leadership intends to avail his services to counter the onslaught of the state government.
TANA is dominated by predominantly by the Kammas, who have settled in the US for two to three generations pursuing businesses and other interests. When TANA had invited the former chief minister Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu earlier, he had sent a delegation to represent him. TD leaders like former MP M. Murali Mohan, Nannapaneni Raja Kumari, Kodela Siva Prasada Rao and others regularly attend TANA meetings held every couple of years.
After suffering humiliating defeat in the recently held polls in the state, Mr Kalyan got an invite from TANA and currently he is attending the meeting in Washington.
Political analysts have said that TANA which earned a bad image because it represented only one social group, intended to expand its scope of representation and accordingly, invited Mr Kalyan as he hailed from another important community called Kapu so that the TANA would have a representation of two strong groups, Kam-ma and Kapu from AP.
With a good number of people from Kamma and Kapu communities being part of TANA, the Telugu Desam intends to use its power against another dominant community, Reddy, in order to counterbalance any act of aggression by the Reddys against the Telugu Desam and its leaders and supporters.
Telugu Desam had alleged that six of its activists were killed and several of them were attacked soon after YSR Congress government assumed charge. Moreover, as the state government was going ahead and reviewing major works and schemes initiated during the TD regime, the TD wanted to be on the safe side by playing the number game.
Mr Kalyan, while addressing the members at TANA on Saturday, targeted Chief Minister Mr Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and said that when those who spent time in the jail were moving about freely, there was nothing wrong in him moving around freely as he had just suffered defeat in the polls that he had fought honestly, while others had distributed money to influence voters. While Mr Kalyan openly targetted Mr Reddy, he did not target the former chief minister Mr Naidu for acts of commission and omission during his tenure.
