Hardly a week left for the declaration of results of the assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh.
While majority of the surveys predicted that YSR Congress party led by Y S Jaganmohan Reddy will come to power in the state, leaders of Telugu Desam Party headed by N Chandrababu Naidy are also hoping that the party would scrape through to come to power for a second term.
But what about Jana Sena Party headed by power star Pawan Kalyan? What is going to be its fate after May 23?
Though he has a huge fan following, especially among the youth of the Kapu community to which he belongs, Jana Sena may do well only in a few pockets of East Godavari, West Godavari and Krishna districts, which have a sizeable chunk of voters from that community.
While a section of political observers say the party might not be able to win two or three assembly seats and a couple of MP seats, another section is of the view that Jana Sena might even spring a surprise by winning at least a dozen MLA seats and play a decisive factor in deciding the government in the state.
That the Jana Sena Party has dropped the gun well in advance was evident from the way many leaders are not even willing to talk about the elections.
In fact, Pawan Kalyan himself told the party functionarites the other day that he was not scared of defeat and called upon the party workers to strengthen the organization from grassroots level and fight the local body elections.
There is a talk that Pawan Kalyan is contemplating merging his party with other political party (read: TDP) soon after polls and returning to film industry again, as was done by his elder brother Chiranjeevi.
However, his party leaders are confident that the power star will not wind up the party, but will continue it like a pressure group and play a dominant role in the coming days.
The actor told party leaders that he did not form the party for the sake of power but wanted to see a change in the society. He hinted that he would be in politics for a long innings.
He told the party leaders that he did not focus on the number of seats the party will win.
“More than the number of seats, what is important is the change we bring,” he said.
Written By Venkat Arikatla