In contrast to the plots of Pawan Kalyan’s movies, the JSP’s rise to prominence in Andhra Pradesh politics since its founding in 2014 has been a protracted and difficult one.
Similar to a scene from one of his movies where he overcomes the antagonists, 55-year-old actor-turned-politician Pawan Kalyan, also known as “Power Star,” appears to have accomplished a similar feat in Andhra Pradesh politics. Against all odds, his Jana Sena Party (JSP) won all 21 Assembly seats and both Lok Sabha seats it ran for as part of the NDA alliance in the recently concluded simultaneous polls in the state.
But in contrast to the plots of Kalyan’s movies, the JSP’s rise to prominence in Andhra Pradesh politics has been a protracted and difficult one. It all began on March 14, 2014, when Kalyan publicly declared the foundation of the JSP, while Andhra awaited its division to become the new Telangana state. At that point, his speech to hundreds of his supporters gave people hope that a new political force was emerging.
“A close aide to Kalyan told me that he floated the JSP and immediately announced support to the NDA because he knew the Jagan Mohan Reddy-led YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) was going to be a force to reckon with in truncated Andhra Pradesh.”
The JSP, led by Kalyan, did not run in the 2014 elections, but it did back the TDP, led by N Chandrababu Naidu, which was then a component of the BJP-led NDA. Sources claimed that after it, he did not receive enough “respect” from the TDP and had a falling out with the NDA over Andhra’s request for Special Category Status (SCS). Due to the similar problem, the TDP also left the NDA in February 2018.
In 2019, the JSP made its electoral debut by teaming up with the Left and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to run in the state’s synchronized Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. Nevertheless, the JSP’s performance was appalling as it managed to secure only one Assembly seat out of the 137 seats it ran for, in addition to failing to win any of the 18 Lok Sabha seats it ran for. Both the Bhimavaram and Gajuwaka Assembly seats were lost by Kalyan. Worse, Rapaka Vara Prasad, the lone JSP MLA, switched to the YSRCP.
The YSRCP suffered a crushing blow as the TDP-JSP-BJP combination won both the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. Kalyan prevailed by more than 70,000 votes to retain the Pithapuram Assembly seat. Kalyan took the oath as the Deputy Chief Minister on Wednesday, the same day that Naidu was sworn in for the fourth time as Chief Minister.
