For quite some time, YSR Congress party and Jana Sena Party have been indulging in a war of words with the latter taking up an aggressive stand against the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government and its policies.
The war reached a new high after Jana Sena Party chief Pawan Kalyan started attacking Jagan on sand issue in the last few days.
At his Visakhapatnam rally, Pawan went all out against the YSRC and the chief minister. Naturally, the YSRC leaders, especially those from Pawan’s Kapu community, launched a counter-attack.
The inadvertent reference by Jagan to Pawan Kalyan’s three wives has taken this war to an ugly turn, as Pawan hurled abuses at the chief minister saying whether the latter had any shame in making such comments and asking him, too, to marry three wives if he wanted.
The YSRC leaders noticed a deliberate attempt by the Jana Sena chief to attribute caste motive to Jagan.
For a long time, Pawan has been referring to the chief minister as “Jagan Reddy,” to point out that he was favouring his own community.
So, they now have a chance to shoot back at Pawan, who appeared to be clearly following the line of Telugu Desam Party headed by former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
They are of the view that Pawan’s whole objective is to favour the TDP president ultimately and then get political benefits from him.
There is also a talk that Pawan is planning to bring about a patch-up between Kapu and Kamma communities, which are otherwise rivals, to take on Reddys.
In fact, both Naidu and Pawan appear to be systematically taking up issues in tandem to attack Jagan and both of them are targeting Reddy community.
Apparently realising this, the YSRC leaders have started calling Pawan Kalyan as Pawan Naidu, in retaliation to the Jana Sena chief calling the chief minister as Jagan Reddy.
On Tuesday, state information and public relations minister Perni Nani referred to Jana Sena chief as “Pawan Naidu,” instead of Pawan Kalyan.
May be, it is an attempt to alienate Pawan from his own Kapu community and project him as a pro-Kamma, as he is toeing the line of Naidu!