Pawan Kalyan likely to meet PM Modi in Visakhapatnam

Pawan Kalyan: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to meet Tollywood actor and Jana Sena party leader Pawan Kalyan when he lands here on Friday night for a series of events the following day.

Later that day, the Jana Sena leader would arrive in the port city and meet with the prime minister at around 8:30 p.m. The meeting will take place at the hotel where Modi was to stay, Jana Sena sources said.

N. Manohar, the head of Jana Sena’s political affairs committee, is also likely to attend the meeting with Pawan Kalyan. The meeting was scheduled based on information from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

This will be a big political step in Andhra Pradesh as BJP supporter Pawan Kalyan is keen to form a broad opposition coalition to challenge the now-ruling YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) in the 2024 elections.

The actor, a vehement opponent of Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, had said a few months earlier that he was waiting for a plan from the BJP to remove the YSRCP from power.

The meeting is important because Pawan Kalyan wants the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) to be an ally to avoid anti-YSRCP vote splitting in the upcoming elections.

The TDP-BJP coalition received the support of Pawan Kalyan in the 2014 elections for the State Assembly and the Lok Sabha. Despite not running for office, Jana Sena campaigned for the coalition and spoke at some public events alongside Prime Minister Modi and TDP leader N. Chandrababu Naidu.

Jana Sena later severed relations with BJP and TDP for failing to grant special category status to Andhra Pradesh as agreed at the time of state breakup in 2014.

In 2019, Jana Sena ran for office in coalition with left-wing parties and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), but only managed to win one seat in the 175-member Assembly, with Pawan Kalyan himself failing in both of his bids. .

In 2020 Jana Sena and the BJP agreed to re-establish their partnership. However, they have not yet started a combined program on people’s problems.

Pawan Kalyan’s offer to resurrect the coalition with the TDP is also rejected by BJP leaders at the state level. On Saturday, the Prime Minister will formally lay the groundwork for a series of projects in Visakhapatnam.

In addition, he will speak at a public meeting likely to be attended by Prime Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy. For the past few days, there have been rumors about Pawan Kalyan’s attendance at the open meeting.

BJP leaders in the state were silent on the matter.