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Ruling out the possibility of a hung assembly, Praja Rajyam Party chief Chiranjeevi today asserted that his party would form the next government in Andhra Pradesh by securing "nothing less than 160 seats" in the recently concluded polls.
Talking to newsmen at the end of the PRP's political affairs committee meeting here today, Chiranjeevi said, " That people are longing for a change has become evident in the elections.. Where there was a silent voting in favour of PRP. Mostly women and youths silently voted in a big way for our party."
Also, the PRP also left a profound impact on the voters, as the trends indicated, he said.
Though he did not specify the number of Lok Sabha seats his party would win, Chiranjeevi said they would support the Fourth Front to form the next government at the Centre.
Asked which seat he would vacate in case of his election from Palakollu and Tirupati, the PRP chief said, "I have not yet decided on this. But whichever seat I will vacate, I will adopt that constituency and strive for its development like the one I retain."
He alleged that the ruling Congress spent crores of rupees and pumped liquor so heavily to defeat him in both the places.
"The Congress stooped to such a low that it flooded both Palakollu and Tirupati with money and liquor with the sole objective of defeating me in the elections. But the vigilant voters did not fall prey to such nefarious tricks," Chiranjeevi pointed out.
He complimented the state Chief Electoral Officer I V Subba Rao and Director General of Police A K Mohanty for ensuring free and fair elections without any malpractices.
Earlier, PRPs political affairs committee reviewed the electoral prospects of the party. It also reportedly discussed the possibility of a hung Assembly and the strategy to be adopted by the party in such eventuality.
Senior PRP leaders P Shiv Shanker, P Upendra, Allu Aravind, K Kala Venkat Rao and others attended the meeting.
The party's ideologue and one of the founding fathers P Mitra was conspicuous by his absence amidst talk that he was quitting the party.
Gone are the days when the print media has been coming up with the truth to the people. These days it looks like political favoritism is the main key. Something like that seems to be happening when one looks at media like Eenadu, Etv, Andhra Jyothy, Surya etc
Apparently, all the given names happen to be strong sympathizers for the Telugu Desam party and ever since the polling has been completed, they have been coming up with reports and analysis that predict a huge landslide victory for Mahakootami and TDP in particular.
However, many say that this is just a hype that they are creating and it is more like ‘building castles in the air’ for them. Reliable sources have been maintaining that Congress looks quite confident about getting the majority and continue their term for another five years. Let us see how this goes.
From a long time, the city of Vizag had been the strongest domain for T Subbarami Reddy and he had been ruling the roost. But now it is heard that this multifaceted man seems to be a bit worried and the cause for that is none other than Daggubati Purandareswari.
It is known that Purandareswari has been contesting for the parliamentary seat from this city and locals have been saying that she has got a good name. This has become the worry for Subbarami Reddy since he is said to be feeling that he has lost the grip over the city.
As it is, the locals have been complaining that there is nothing that he has done so it was obvious that they wanted to give Purandareswari the chance. While the inside reports say that her win looks quite definite, it remains to be seen if TSR is going to come up with anything to stop it from happening.
It is known news that there has been a stiff opposition for megastar Chiranjeevi and that too in his strong East Godavari district during this election. So, here is an interesting ploy the anti-Chiru forces had used to ensure that PRP does not get the votes.
In one of the constituencies in East Godavari, there was a PRP candidate in the name of Thota Trimurtulu and obviously his symbol was rail engine. However, what the opposition has done is, they brought in another independent candidate Bandi Trimurtulu and gave him the symbol Road Roller.
Due to this, many voters got confused between the symbols and the names and ended up voting more for the independent candidate. This way, there were lot of votes that were lost by the PRP candidate and this could mean that Chiru has surely lost one prospective seat here. It is said that such act was repeated in many constituencies to kill PRP and retain competition between only Congress and Mahakootami. We have to see how far Road Roller crushed Rail Engine on May 16th
Praja Rajyam Party leader and former MP Ch Harirama Jogaiah continues to trouble his party president Chiranjeevi with his loose talk.
While Chiranjeevi is exuding confidence that there is a silent wave among the people in favour of the PRP in the elections, Jogaiah punctured his balloon saying that the party has no chances of coming to power on its own. “At the most, the PRP will get a maximum of 120 seats and a minimum of 80 seats,” he told media persons in Eluru.
This has naturally come as an embarrassment to Chiru, who is already in a state of depression. He is learnt to have called Jogaiah and pulled him up for talking nonsense. Looks like Jogaiah is turning out to be another M Satyanarayana Rao for the PRP!
The Praja Rajyam chief Chiranjeevi is not ready to reveal which party he would support in the event of a fractured mandate, but believes that the Telugu Desam chief, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, is craftier than the Chief Minister, Dr Y.S.Rajasekhar Reddy, who is “outspoken and bold.”
The comments may give food for thought to political analysts in the context of the Congress and the TD making overtures to get his support in the event of a hung Assembly.
“We can easily understand the strategies of Dr Reddy by observing his behaviour and words,” said Chiranj-eevi in an interview to this newspaper. “He (Dr Reddy) is fair and his actions are transparent. But, it is very difficult to gauge the gameplans of the TD chief. His attitude and behaviour change every hour. It is difficult to read his actions and predict his behaviour.”
Chiranjeevi himself is confident that his party would get the “magic number.” He said he was not even thinking about the possibility of a hung House. “If I consider that idea, it will be nothing but insulting people of the state, who voted for my party in support of change slogan and have enormous confidence in me,” he said.
According to the Praja Rajyam chief, the people of the state were intelligent enough to elect a competent government.
“The political history of our state reveals this,” he said. “Whenever polls were held, right from Srikakulam to Adilabad, voters gave uniform mandate as if all of them discussed it over the phone. This time too the same thing is going to happen.”
Interestingly, Chiranjeevi does not imagine his party occupying the Opposition seats in the Assembly either. He said the Congress was the main opponent for the Praja Rajyam in the polls, since the TD had lost credibility among people with its U-turns on several issues.
When asked why he was attacking Mr Naidu, after praising him in 2004, Chiranjeevi said he thought initially that the TD chief was doing good things for the state but had to change his opinion later. “I was moved by the spate of suicides of farmers during Mr Naidu’s regime,” he said. “Before the 2004 polls, Mr Naidu called on the actor Brahmanadam while he was shooting in a studio, to seek his support. I could not believe that a Chief Minister would stoop to that level. After that, my opinion about Mr Naidu began changing.”
He started developing a different attitude towards Dr Reddy after learning about the “realities” of his regime. “I respected Dr Reddy for taking up several projects and developmental works on a large-scale but then I heard that there was huge corruption behind all this,” Chiranjeevi said.
Chiranjeevi also pointed out that Praja Rajyam had spoiled a smooth Congress victory. “Had my party not been there, it would have been a cakewalk for the Congress,” he said. “Now, we have broken their monopoly.”
Regarding his party’s role in the national level, Chiranjeevi said that he would follow the “Tamil Nadu model” of giving priority to the interests of the state. He made it clear that his party would not align with the Congress-led UPA, the BJP-led NDA or the TD-led third front in the Centre.
“Praja Rajyam will be part of the fourth front launched by Samajawadi party at national level, and we will maintain equidistance from the other three fronts,” he said.
