NETA NATTER | Jana Sena Waits For Pawan Kalyan To Land Another Power Punch

Jana Sena president and AP’s Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan surely knows a thing or two he may have picked up from the world of movies he also straddles. Never one to let a distressed section wallow in problems, he has now proposed a strong legislation to control social media platforms from propagating misinformation campaigns against the government, and presided over a meeting recently where his party MLAs passed a resolution for a law to deal with objectionable remarks against women. Bludgeoning the bad guys on the screen may come with great ease to the superstar actor, his party leaders now hope that Pawan Kalyan can prevail in a similar manner to get the proposed legislations moving in the right direction.

Naidu, Lokesh hard-focus pays off big

Most politicians usually have some pet projects. Some are driven by passion, others by the need for public good, and development. Take for instance the mission zeal with which Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu stays focused on developing Amaravati, among many other issues he juggles with, or the heir apparent, Naidu’s son and minister Nara Lokesh’s push to lift Vizag by its bootstraps and turn it into a happening city attracting investments. The efforts are paying off what with Google deciding to build its Asia’s largest data centre in Vizag. TCS has already opened shop in the port city.

At breakfast, MLAs break TD MP’s heart

It is all about carrying everyone along in politics and Visakhapatnam MP M. Sribharat appears to be facing some trouble on this front with not everyone in the ruling TD apparently seeing eye to eye with him. At a recent breakfast meeting with local legislators, where the MP sought to discuss his efforts in New Delhi, meeting various Union ministers on issues related to Visakhapatnam’s development, missing prominently was senior TD MLA Ganta Srinivasa Rao, whose absence, Sribharat alluded to, was on account of time-related constraints. The fact that these two leaders have been at loggerheads is no secret as Sribharat began his briefing, TD MLA P. Gana Babu made his way out, resulting in some raised eyebrows if all was well between the MP and some of his party MLAs.

BJP or Congress, flood swamps them all

None can escape nature’s fury. Finding this out were many politicians in the wake of the heavy rain and severe floods that hammered Kamareddy district this past week. Finding themselves turning into flood victims of sorts, in that they could not go anywhere and extend some courage and help to the affected people, were Yellareddy’s Congress MLA K. Madanmohan Rao, and Kamareddy’s BJP MLA K. Venkataramana Reddy. Roads that disappeared under furiously flowing water, and destroyed highways, meant that despite their best efforts neither could make it into the hinterlands of their constituencies and were restricted to working their phones. The responsibility of reaching out to the flood-hit fell on the shoulders of second-rung leaders, while the MLAs phones reportedly kept buzzing with calls and selfie videos from their constituents who flooded them with clips highlighting the problems they were facing.

Bhumana takes aim at a former friend

Bureaucrats may have long known that political leaders in power are at best fair-weather friends and that things can turn on a dime. Such appears to be the case with a senior IAS officer in Andhra Pradesh who has become a target for Bhumana Karunakar Reddy, TTD chairman during the YSRC regime. Bhumana, with his party YSRC out of power, has trained his guns on the very same officer, accusing her of masterminding the transferable development rights bonds move in the Tirupati area, a decision that has come under the scrutiny of the TD government. Bhumana has claimed that there was a time when he had made it clear that the official should not be in Tirupati. But his latest claims ring hollow, his detractors say, especially given that this officer who originally opted for the Telangana cadre was brought to AP after Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy became Chief Minister and was given some prime posts with the then powerful YSRC leader and former MP V. Vijayasai Reddy having played a significant role in the official’s arrival into the Andhra Pradesh cadre.

BRS MLAs want to be pillars in KLIS defence

Will he? Won’t he? The question whether former CM and BRS party president K. Chandrashekar Rao will be attending the Assembly session has all but been answered with his party making it clear that the Congress government, meaning the treasury benches, will first have to go through the BRS MLAs. Making this clear was BRS MLA and former legislative affairs minister Vemula Prashant Reddy who said there was no need for KCR to be in the House to ‘expose’ the government and its campaign to discredit the BRS over the project. Let them first get through us, and allow Harish Rao to make a presentation on the project, was Vemula’s response to the Congress demand that KCR be in the House for the discussions. With KCR expected to be targeted, the heavy lifting of defending the project, himself, and the former CM, is all set to fall on former irrigation minister Harish Rao.

Why Smita Sabharwal went on leave

Senior IAS officer Smita Sabharwal’s decision to go on six months of child care leave from August 2025 to January 2026 stirred the usual unusual chatter in bureaucratic circles, given the fact that she was holding the post of member secretary of the Telangana State Finance Commission, considered by many in the bureaucracy as a ‘loopline’ post. The speculation was that the IAS officer was unhappy for a while after she was moved to the SFC from her previous post of tourism secretary in November 2024, ahead of the Miss World pageant, with the transfer following her retweeting an AI-generated post — seen as critical of government plans at Kancha Gachibowli. The news she shared on X that she was recovering from a surgery which she said “shook her world” and that she was slowly healing, came just in time to smother speculation on her going on leave.

Power games in VIP corridors

In a move that has set off murmurs across political and bureaucratic circles, principal secretary, endowments, Shailaja Ramaiyyar, has issued orders appointing L. Ramadevi as executive officer of the Sri Raja Rajeshwara Swamy temple in Vemulawada on deputation. The orders, dated August 28, have raised more than a few eyebrows for the unusual sequence of events that preceded them. Ramadevi, a special grade deputy collector from the revenue department, was drafted into the endowments department in July 2020, when the BRS government posted her as EO of Sri Sita Ramachandra Swamy temple at Bhadrachalam. After completing five years on deputation, revenue and housing minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy recently ordered her repatriation to the housing department. But Shailaja, wife of IT minister D. Sridhar Babu, did not relieve her. Instead, she obtained approval from the state government to extend Ramadevi’s stay in endowments and promptly posted her at the Vemulawada temple. Whispers in the power corridors suggest that Shailaja’s proximity to power — via Sridhar Babu’s closeness to Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, helped her prevail.

Contributions from Aruna, Vadrevu Srinivas, Md Ilyas, L. Venkat Ram Reddy, Narender Pulloor, Avinash P. Subramanyam, Sampat G. Samritan, Balu Pulipaka