The suspense on seat sharing between the Telugu Desam and Janasena parties came to an end with the official announcement on Saturday morning. Both Chandra Babu Naidu and Pawan Kalyan held a joint press meet and revealed the list of candidates for 99 segments. Out of these, TDP got a lion’s share with 94 seats and Janasena was confined to just a meagre 5 seats.
Pawan Kalyan formally stated that Janasena will be contesting a total of 24 seats out of the 175 and 3 out of the 25 Parliament seats. So, TDP will field candidates in 151 constituencies. If the BJP comes into the fold, there might be some changes in the share of the TDP quota. More or less Janasena will get a maximum of 30 Seats to contest in the upcoming assembly elections of Andhra Pradesh.
As soon as Pawan Kalyan revealed these numbers, there seemed to be widespread dissent among the supporters and leaders of Janasena because many felt that the party, which was formed before 2014, got a raw deal due to the alliance. They were displeased and disgruntled with the fact that their leader didn’t pay heed to the hard work and sacrifices of the party supporters and settled with such a minimal number of seats.
The Janasena cadre feels that Pawan Kalyan should have demanded more seats while going as an alliance partner as there will be a considerable increase in the voting percentage for the party in the upcoming elections because of the dedicated efforts put in by its supporters in the last five years.
While many of his supporters might not think on the same wavelength as Pawan Kalyan did, the call taken by the Janasena supremo to settle with just 24 seats is right in many ways.
Pawan Kalyan’s priority is to oust Jagan Mohan Reddy from power and make sure that the state is put on the right track on many indices. To achieve this, there shouldn’t be any splitting of anti-incumbency votes between the opposition parties. So, he extended support to the main opposition party, Telugu Desam.
If Pawan Kalyan demands around 60-70 seats, there would be a revolt in the TDP cadre and this might largely impact the winning prospects of many of the candidates in these constituencies. Then, the very purpose of allying with the TDP will be defeated as Jagan’s YSRCP might sneak through victory even with the barest margin.
Pawan Kalyan’s plan is to make sure that Janasena gets adequate representation in the state assembly after this election. If he gets 20-25 MLAs by his side, he can surely strengthen the party from the grassroots level in these constituencies. So, instead of blindly demanding more seats with no proper ground-level cadre, he stuck to his plans and made sure that only those seats where the party was strong at all levels were retained by Janasena.
Recently, Pawan Kalyan made a controversial statement about spending money in elections. He hinted to his cadre that leaders should be able to shell out money during election campaigns to attract the voters. This means that Pawan Kalyan realized the importance of spending money in the current era to sustain in politics.
So, to face heavyweights in a party like YSRCP, which has been in power for the last five years, the TDP – Janasena alliance should be able to field those candidates who can afford to spend money in the upcoming elections. Pawan Kalyan has a clear picture of which leaders in Janasena can do this. Hence, he went ahead with his pragmatic approach and took the right call instead of following the emotions of his supporters.