Fissures surfaced in the TDP and Janasena alliance. Speaking in Mangalagiri, Pawan Kalyan resorted to blackmailing politics to the TDP high command.
Finding wrong with Chandrababu announcing candidates for Mandapeta and Araku, Pawan Kalyan said we are also unilaterally announcing candidates for Razole and Rajanagaram constituencies.
In his speech, Pawan Kalyan also found it wrong that Nara Lokesh said that Chandrababu Naidu would be the Chief Minister candidate.
This single speech should be an eye-opener for the TDP leadership.
They should get an idea of where the needless over-cautious politics with an unstable politician like Pawan Kalyan can lead them.
Mandapeta is the sitting seat of the Telugu Desam Party. The party has won every election there since its inception. It is a no-brainer that TDP will contest this. Pawan Kalyan has problem with it?
Janasena won a single seat in the last election. Pawan Kalyan himself lost both seats. If he is expecting there will be a chance for Power-sharing, there should be an idea of where this alliance will lead.
If Pawan Kalyan talks of power-sharing, we can also conclude that Pawan Kalyan will insist on a large number of seats.
TDP has this habit of doing పిరికి రాజకీయాలు (cowardly politics) in the name of alliances.
This happened in the 2009 elections as well. TDP has yielded to the blackmailing politics of the TRS and gave the party forty-five seats. TRS won only ten seats ensuring TDP sat in the Opposition. If TDP yields to this blackmailing politics again, history will repeat itself.
If TDP loses in 2024, it will sit in Opposition for another term. At the same time if Janasena loses, it will be the end of the road for the party. It is impossible to run a party by sitting in opposition for fifteen years. Even if it somehow struggles, Jagan is not someone who will spare.
But then, thanks to the defensive politics of TDP, it is as if the elections are important only to TDP and Janasena has no stakes whatsoever. Hence this blackmailing politics.
Pawan Kalyan extended support to TDP at a crucial time. TDP should respect him for that but that should not be at the cost of the the larger interests of the state.
This single speech of Pawan Kalyan should be an eye-opener for the TDP leadership. It is important to set the right expectations for Janasena and announce the seat-sharing as soon as possible. There is momentum on the ground for TDP and the alliance is just a precautionary step.
The momentum should not be ruined with these bargains till the last minute.
