Will Telugu megastar Chiranjeevi join BJP?

As part of its ‘Look South’ mission to make inroads in southern states, the BJP is trying to lure Telugu megastar Chiranjeevi into its fold. The saffron party has sent feelers to the actor whose tryst with politics in the past had ended as a flop show. The ageing star is now keeping himself away from active politics.  His younger brother Pawan Kalyan also had a disastrous foray into electoral politics recently.

“The talks are at a preliminary stage. Our representatives called on the actor in Hyderabad a few days ago. He was even offered the post of Andhra unit president if he joins the party,” a top BJP source said.

Chiranjeevi (63), who is currently busy with the upcoming period movie ‘Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy’, is yet to take a call on the proposal.

Flop show

Amid much hype and fanfare, Chiranjeevi had floated Praja Rajyam Party in August 2008 but failed to make much impact on the voters in the 2009 elections. After raising expectations that he could repeat the feat of the Telugu matinee idol N T Rama Rao’s swashbuckling political entry in 1982, Chiranjeevi’s political foray came a cropper. The megastar himself lost one of the two Assembly seats he contested while his party could win just 18 seats in the 294-member united Andhra Pradesh Assembly and bag 18% vote share.

Chiranjeevi subsequently merged his party with the Congress and became a Rajya Sabha member and a minister in the Manmohan Singh cabinet. He was made the campaign chief for Congress in Andhra ahead of the 2014 elections but the party got completely routed in the polls, drawing a blank both in the Assembly and the Lok Sabha. The Congress faced the public wrath for dividing Andhra Pradesh to carve out a separate Telangana state.

Since then, the megastar has been staying away from active politics and did not even come out in support of his brother’s party Jana Sena. His silence over Pawan Kalyan’s electoral foray had disappointed millions of his fans.

Why Chiranjeevi?

The BJP’s plan to rope in Chiranjeevi is essentially guided by caste considerations. He belongs to a numerically strong and influential ‘Kapu’ community which is being targeted by the saffron party now.

Already, several senior leaders of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), belonging to Kapu community, are set to cross over to the BJP. They have been holding a series of parleys in the last few days to chalk out their future course of action.

The BJP has drawn up a clear road map for Andhra where it wants to target the Chandrababu Naidu-led TDP, using Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy’s shoulders, and then occupy the opposition space ahead of the 2024 Assembly elections.

The first phase of the ‘Andhra Project’ involves poaching Kapu leaders from the TDP. “It is here that Chiranjeevi can add glamour quotient, given his fan following, and infuse new energy among the cadre,” sources said.

Despite constituting over 20 percent of the state population, Kapus never got to control the levers of power as power politics was traditionally dominated by only the Kamma and Reddy communities.

Whoever won majority seats in the Kapu-dominated coastal region, particularly the East Godavari and West Godavari districts, had captured power in the combined Andhra Pradesh. It is pretty much part of the political folklore now. As many as 38 constituencies in the 175-member AP assembly are dominated by Kapus who are known for their strong caste loyalty. In the 2014 elections, a majority of these seats went to the TDP as Pawan Kalyan had extensively campaigned for the TDP-BJP combine. In the recent polls, a split in the community’s votes, because of the presence of Pawan Kalyan in the fray, had benefited Jagan’s YSR Congress Party.

Andhra Pradesh is known for strong caste loyalties. Therefore, the BJP is trying to target some of the ‘ignored’ communities in its bid to attempt a social engineering experiment of the kind it implemented in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.

Burden of the past

Despite his tinsel glamour, the self-made actor is widely seen as a failed politician. His political moves often lacked any clear-cut strategy or consistency nor did he focus his attention on building a robust organisational structure. Relying entirely on his star appeal and the perceived support base of his community, without investing on the craft of politics, had led to his failure.

His Rajya Sabha term ended in April last year and he chose not to renew his membership in Congress.

Chiranjeevi, a self-made star in an industry dominated by a few families, is a mass hero in the mould of N T Rama Rao. He is known for his action movies and dancing skills.

In a career spanning over three decades, Chiranjeevi churned out several blockbusters and became the uncrowned king of Tollywood. However, his tryst with politics has been anything but fruitful. Promising “social justice and change”, he entered politics with a bang by launching his own party, conducted hugely successful road shows, reminiscent of the NTR magic, and raised hopes of emerging as an alternative to the two main contenders for power—Congress and the TDP.

However, his political show turned out to be a flop. His Praja Rajyam Party ended up splitting the opposition votes and helped the Congress secure a second consecutive term in office in the 2009 elections.