Telugu Desam Party headed by N Chandrababu Naidu won the recent assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh with a massive mandate in alliance with the Jana Sena Party headed by actor Pawan Kalyan and Bharatiya Janata Party.
During the formation of the National Democratic Alliance government in the state, all the three parties are working in tandem without any major hiccups among them, at least for now and the coalition is working in close coordination.
Naidu appears to be giving due respect to Pawan Kalyan – he made him deputy chief minister, accommodating two other Jana Sena members in the state cabinet. He obliged the request of Pawan in giving one MLC seat to Jana Sena candidate.
In the assembly and outside, too, he was all praise for the power star.
Yet, some people are keenly watching the functioning of Naidu and Pawan Kalyan and waiting for an opportunity to see whether there is any widening gap between the two leaders.
Particularly, the overenthusiastic Jana Sena Party workers, who treat Pawan Kalyan as a super hero, are not hesitating to express their disgruntlement if they felt Naidu is sidelining or ignoring their boss.
When they could not find Pawan Kalyan’s picture on the front page advertisement released by the state government in all the newspapers on the occasion of disbursement of enhanced pensions among the beneficiaries on July 1, they did not hide their anger.
They expressed anger on social media platforms, accusing Naidu of deliberately avoiding publishing of Pawan Kalyan’s photo in the advertisements.
One Jana Sena worker went to the extent of commenting that without Pawan Kalyan, Naidu would not have come to power at all.
Now, in the latest instance, Naidu came in for criticism yet again from Pawan Kalyan followers.
The chief minister went to New Delhi to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several Union ministers to represent on the issues concerning the state and seek the central assistance to various projects.
So far so good. But Pawan Kalyan’s fans are questioning why Naidu did not take the deputy chief minister along with him to New Delhi. They are questioning whether Naidu wanted to take the entire credit for himself or deliberately sidelining or ignoring Pawan Kalyan.
They have pointed out that Telangana chief minister A Revanth Reddy, too, met Modi and other Union minister in Delhi at the same time. But at every meeting, Revanth was accompanied by deputy chief minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka.
“When Revanth could take his deputy, why didn’t Naidu do the same? Had he done it, it would have sent a strong message to the cadres of both the parties that the bonding between the two leaders is very strong. It would have avoided unnecessary heartburn among the Pawan Kalyan fans,” an analyst observed.