Everybody knows how the Telugu Desam Party came to power in 2014 elections. While the last minute decision of party president N Chandrababu Naidu to forge an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party was one major reason, it is no undeniable fact that power star Pawan Kalyan had contributed a major share to the TDP’s victory with his extensive campaign for the TDP-BJP combine. Especially in East and West Godavari districts, Pawan Kalyan magic worked a lot.
Naturally, one would expect the TDP to be thankful to Pawan in this regard. In fact, Pawan has been adopting a soft corner towards Naidu, though he has been attacking the BJP and NDA of late for denying special category status to Andhra Pradesh and also on other issues like demonetisation, saffronisation etc.
Yet, the TDP leaders are thankless towards Pawan and instead are running him down for questioning the government lapses.
The comments made by loud-mouth TDP legislator from Denduluru Chintamaneni Prabhakar naturally angered Pawan Kalyan fans.
In an interview to a television channel, Prabhakar said the TDP would have won even if Pawan had not campaigned. “We have won panchayat elections even without Pawan Kalyan campaign. How can a person who could not even get his brother win some seats can help the TDP?” he questioned.
The Jana Sena party workers expressed strong resentment over the TDP legislator’s comments. They staged dahrnas and rasta rokos at Tadepalligudem and Jangareddygudem in West Godavari district and burnt the effigy and blocked traffic for over an hour.
They said that Pawan Kalyan was the star campaigner for the TDP and it was voted to power only due to him. They demanded that Prabhakar should withdraw his “derogatory” comments against Pawan or else he would face their fury.
