Pawan Kalyan 'man of the match' in NDA victory in Andhra Pradesh

Amaravati: If the just concluded Assembly polls in Andhra Pradesh can be equated to a sporting contest, it will be Janasena Party chief Pawan Kalyan who could walk away with "man of the match" award for ensuring NDA's stupendous show.

Despite humiliating personal defeats at Bhimavaram and Gajuwaka Assembly segments in the 2019 polls, Kalyan relentlessly strived to forge an alliance between his party, the N Chandrababu Naidu-led TDP and the BJP.

This bore fruits.

As part of a seat sharing deal among NDA partners, TDP contested from 144 Assembly and 17 Lok Sabha constituencies while BJP put out candidates in six parliamentary and 10 Assembly seats. Janasena contested two Lok Sabha and 21 Assembly seats and is leading in all the segments.

And the NDA was in the process of securing comfortable victories in both.

It was Kalyan, the actor-politician who first announced his party's intention to have a post-polls alliance with TDP at a prison where the former Chief Minister and TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu was lodged following his arrest in the "skill development scam case" in September last year.

Kalyan's announcement uplifted TDP morale and subsequent events drew BJP into the fold, bolstering the alliance.

Founded in the run-up to 2014 polls, Janasena had won only one Assembly seat back then in the form of Rapaka Varaprasad from Razole.

Now, the party had won six seats and ahead in 15 out of the 21 Assembly seats it contested in the 2024 Assembly polls.

Playing the pivotal role of avoiding vote erosion among the NDA partners, Kalyan almost played the key role of a kingmaker in the 2024 simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly election.

Pawan Kalyan who first entered active politics in 2008 through his older brother Chiranjeevi’s erstwhile Prajarajyam, finally tasted electoral victory.

The actor – politician was ahead by a margin of over 67,000 votes in Pithapuram over his YSRCP rival V Geetha Vishwanath.

It took exactly a decade for Janasena to make deep inroads in politics.