Jana Sena Party chief Pawan Kalyan’s sensational comments on village and ward volunteers triggered huge uproar in the political circles, causing troubles not only to the power star, but also to his prospective alliance partner – Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu.
The village and ward volunteers’ system created by YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has become so strong at the grassroots level that even Naidu has been hesitating to talk about doing away with the system.
In fact, Naidu’s son Nara Lokesh even said during the padayatra there was no need for the village volunteers to worry about their jobs if the TDP comes to power; and said they would get better job security.
But now, Pawan Kalyan made some wild allegations against village/ward volunteers – accusing them of indulging in woman trafficking.
He alleged that thousands of women went missing in the last four years, based on the data provided by these volunteers.
This has triggered strong protests from village and ward volunteers, who burnt Pawan Kalyan’s effigies in the last two days.
At the same time, the AP Women’s Commission also issued him notices, asking him to provide evidence to substantiate his allegations, failing which he should apologise.
Though Jana Sena chief tried to defend himself saying he did not make an generalised comments against volunteers, but referred to only a few stray people. Yet, the damage has been done to Jana Sena.
At the same time, his comments landed Naidu also in an embarrassing situation.
The YSRC leaders have already started attacking the TDP chief for his silence on Pawan’s comments and said his silence would mean endorsing them.
They are even campaigning expressing doubts that it could be Naidu who might have instigated Pawan to talk against village/ward volunteers.
In both ways, Pawan’s talk will have an adverse impact on Naidu and his party, analysts said.