Hyderabad: Jana Sena Party (JSP) supremo and popular actor Pawan Kalyan has sounded the political bugle in Andhra Pradesh for the assembly election in 2024. He is all set to begin his roadshow from East Godavari district on Wednesday, June 14. Interestingly, the first phase of the ‘Varahi Yatra’ will cover 11 key assembly segments where a potentially crucial and captive Kapu caste vote bank is concentrated. While there will undoubtedly be huge crowds, will the actor-politician be able to convert this support into actual votes this time around and transfer them to the benefit of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP)?
Pawan Kalyan in the recent past has repeatedly declared that he will ensure anti-incumbency votes are not split. As part of this effort, he joined hands with the TDP and an alliance between them seems a foregone conclusion now. In fact, the surprise meeting between TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu and Union home minister Amit Shah in New Delhi is being seen as the fruition of Kalyan’s efforts to build a united opposition to take on chief minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP). The JSP and BJP are already in a formal alliance.
Projecting strength for a better deal?
While the JSP officially contends the yatra is meant to consolidate its base, highly placed sources within the party say it is also a show of strength to negotiate a better deal in future seat-sharing discussions. “The JSP got about 5% vote share in 2019. The crowds that will turn up during the yatra will most definitely help us punch above our weight and negotiate a better deal during seat-sharing discussions,” the source told The Wire.
The TDP thinks otherwise. “We don’t think exerting pressure on us is the agenda of the yatra. Pawan Kalyan has always been clear from the beginning about a YSRCP-mukt Andhra Pradesh. In fact, he was quite accommodating during the informal alliance talks. Moreover, he has said publicly that the JSP’s strength is limited and cautioned his fans and supporters to understand the ground reality and make practical demands,” TDP spokesperson K. Pattabi told The Wire.
The JSP contested 137 of 175 assembly segments in 2019. It retained its deposits in only 16, winning just one seat. Interestingly, the 11 segments to be covered in the first phase of the yatra are from these 16 segments. This suggests a conservative approach, attempting to consolidate the party’s strengths before venturing into other districts. Pattabi thinks this is a good decision. “Even the late YSR [Jagan’s father Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy] started began his padayatra in 2003-4 from his stronghold of Idupulapaya,” he told The Wire.
Pawan Kalyan and N. Chandrababu Naidu on January 8, 2023. Photo: Video screengrab
Will the Kapu vote consolidate behind JSP and help TDP?
Pattabi is also confident that the Kapu community, to which Kalyan belongs, will consolidate behind the JSP. Therefore, the TDP will also benefit from a vote transfer. “Jagan Mohan Reddy has always ignored certain communities like the Kammas [the TDP’s core voter base]. He doesn’t even bother to appeal to them. He is doing the same with the Kapu community. Cabinet minister Kodali Nani even said recently that they don’t care for Kapu votes,” he told The Wire.
According to JSP leader Panchakarla Sandeep, both the delta districts of East and West Godavari are strongholds of the party. “Pawan Kalyan has many fans in this belt. Moreover, there is substantial support from Kapus here. But we also have support among the backward communities like Setti Balija and Agnikula Kshatriya (fishermen). Even forward castes like the Kshatriyas support us,” he told The Wire.
Raju Raviteja, a former JSP leader who co-authored the book Ism with Pawan Kalyan detailing the party’s political ideology, believes otherwise. “Kalyan’s attempts to garner Kapu votes against Jagan is a non-starter. At the ground level, Kammas and Kapus are political rivals. It will be a challenge for him to convince them to work together. Moreover, the Kapus feel Pawan Kalyan will sell their interests to the TDP,” he told The Wire.
YSRCP national media advisor Devulapalli Amar agrees with Raviteja. He asked why the Kapus will carry Naidu’s palanquin. “First, Kapus do not vote as a monolith. Second, they will not agree to a combination which will make Naidu the CM, which means they will not work wholeheartedly on the ground for some other leader’s victory. Finally, they know Naidu’s history of political betrayals and the treatment he meted out to the Kapu community after he became the CM in 2014. So, they will be very cautious of him,” he told The Wire.
When asked if the JSP is aware of these challenges, Raju Raviteja said that Kalyan is “too close” to him to “have an objective assessment of the situation”, since his style of leadership is “too impulsive”.
Also Read: Why a Meeting Between Amit Shah and Chandrababu Naidu Says a Lot About BJP’s Fears
What about the fans?
Raju Ravitej believes Pawan Kalyan’s fans are his biggest liability. “His fans are unruly and violent. While Kalyan goes around trying to convince people to vote for him, the behaviour of his fans is convincing people to vote against him. He takes one step forward while his fans push him two steps backwards,” he said.
He added: “Of course, he can rein in his fans to some extent. But he doesn’t want to do that because he wants them to chant his name and use this support to consolidate his position in his own party and overcome elements that rebel against him. Kalyan takes control through organised chaos and the tragedy is that this beats his own organisation hollow, giving him a pyrrhic victory of sorts.”
This raises an important question about Kalyan’s capability to have control over his MLAs if he does manage to win a few seats. Will he be able to stop them from jumping ship to the TDP or YSRCP? In fact, the party’s lone MLA in the current assembly, Rapaka Varaprasad, also distanced himself from the party and is now closely associated with the ruling YSRCP.
Why does the Kapu vote matter?
It matters for three reasons. One, it is estimated that the Kapus constitute about 15-17% of the state’s population. Two, they are desperate for political power and feel a sense of indignation that they have been deliberately kept out of power by the Kammas and Reddys. Three, they are concentrated in geographical pockets with an especially high concentration in East and West Godavari.
The third reason is crucial. A high concentration of vote share in a particular geography tends to convert into a disproportionately high number of seats. This is usually explained by psephologists using the Cube Rule. It refers to a principle in political science that applies to electoral systems using the first-past-the-post (FPTP) method.
More specifically, the ratio of seats won by a political party to the total number of seats is approximately proportional to the cube of the ratio of the number of votes won by the party to the total number of votes.
For instance, this is evident in Karnataka, where the BJP’s vote share has consistently been less than the Congress’s. Yet, the saffron party has sometimes managed to win more seats – simply because its vote base, like the Lingayat community for example, is concentrated in certain large pockets of the state. But the Congress vote bases are spread thinly across the state.
With the TDP and the Kapu community desperate for power, Pawan Kalyan and his ‘Varahi Yatra’ might prove to be decisive in Andhra Pradesh.
