Pawan has announced the names of Janasena contestants from Guntur district. He named Thota Chandrasekhar as candidate for Guntur Parliament seat and Nadendla Manohar as candidate for Tenali Assembly seat.

In Guntur public meeting, Pawan heaped praises on Nadendla Manohar and Thota Chandrasekhar. Pawan wished that Janasena flag should shine in Amaravati after 2019 polls. He said Communist parties and Janasena would work together in the coming general elections.

Meanwhile, Pawan hasn’t confirmed the constituency from where Ravela would contest and this is shocking many that what is stopping Pawan. Even when Ravela’s name popped up during discussion in the latest meeting in Guntur, Pawan just confirmed that he would contest on Janasena ticket but hasn’t confirmed from which constituency he is in fray. Currently, Ravela is representing Prathipadu Assembly constituency (reserved for SC). Usually, sitting MLAs would be given the same constituency. But Pawan’s silence on Ravela’s constituency is raising many eye balls.

If the rumour mills are to be believed, the Congress High Command in New Delhi wants its firebrand leader from Kodangal, A. Revanth Reddy, to contest the Lok Sabha elections. Revanth, who has earlier stated that he will not be around for media to comment on the politics in the state after his defeat, is being compelled to choose the Mahbubnagar Parliamentary seat from the Congress.

Similarly, TPCC President Uttam Kumar Reddy has also been asked to stay in the race to contest for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. The Congress High Command believes that the upcoming polls are a chance for the party’s revival after its decimation in the Assembly elections recently. However, grapevine has it that Chevella TRS MP who switched to Congress will contest from the said seat and there will be no change.

At a time when there are rumours that party’s senior leaders such as Jana Reddy are planning to switch to the TRS, it remains to be seen who will be Congress’ candidates to contest for Lok Sabha seats in Telangana. Other leaders who are vying for Lok Sabha tickets are DK Aruna, Geetha Reddy, Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, Shabbir Ali and Jeevan Reddy among others.

An English daily has claimed that Megapowerstar Ram Charan’s wife Upasana is all set to enter politics and she is expected to contest against her ‘Babai’ Konda Vishweshwar Reddy from Chevella.

Reacting to this report, Upasana said there is no truth in it and she is not joining politics as of now. Vishweshwar Reddy is Upasana’s aunt Sangeeth Reddy’s husband. He played an active role in Telangana agitation and after the separate statehood, he joined TRS and won as MP from Chevella. But before the 2018 assembly elections, he quit TRS and joined Congress. To give a tough fight to Vishweshwar Reddy this time, TRS is drawing special strategies and one of it is rope a prominent personality.

TRS working president KTR who is close friend of Ram Charan, approached Upasana with political proposal, claimed the media report.

“Sangeetha Reddy is my boss and Babai Vishweshwar Reddy did a lot for the development of Chevellla. I’m already working for Apollo groups and I’m very much occupied with the work over here,” stated Upasana.

The Mega daughter-in-law was quick enough to condemn these rumours and settle things.

YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had several tags in political, media and social media circuits. He had been tagged as “angry”, “arrogant”, “disrespectful”, “impolite”, “hot-headed”. He had also been known for making too personal comments on his political opponents Chandrababu Naidu, Pawan Kalyan. There were times when Jagan had stated that there is nothing wrong in shooting Chandrababu Naidu in public, he had also made such uncalled for statements and paid a huge price for it. Even in Nandyal by-poll, Jagan’s vicious diatribes on Chandrababu are said to had made it so easy for the TDP to come out with flying colours.

But this is all passe. Jagan seems to have learnt lessons. His reaction on Vangaveeti Radha’s exit and his strong comments have come as a huge surprise – even to YCP’s own leaders and political experts. Jagan had handled the whole issue so well with calm, composure. Jagan’s reaction – “Radha Ekkada Vunna Bavundali” – despite the fact that Radha breathed fire on him like never before is a laudable one. Such composure, maturity are needed in politics.

In fact, TDP and Janasena were expecting a strong counter from Jagan to Radha’s aggressive remarks. TDP expected that Jagan would react in same tone as Radha and thus wanted to politically cash in on Jagan’s weakness – anger. But for strange, Jagan didn’t give that chance to his political opponents. He had acted very smart and by saying so, Jagan had scored points in public. Also, a section of Kapus who were unhappy with Radha over his next political step (joining into TDP), are now said to be praising Jagan for his reaction. Has Jagan became more matured? Has Jagan started learning how to act in politics? Is Prashant Kishor behind this change in Jagan? Only time will tell.

Over the past two days, ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Madurai, netizens from Tamil Nadu began a trend #GoBackModi which topped the global trends on Twitter for over 48 hours. This unity and togetherness of Tamils on social media has stunned people all over India. So, what is it about the Tamils that actually struck a chord with the rest of the Indians, especially those from the South?

Soon after this trend, people from Kerala on social media started the hashtag trend #PoMoneModi (Go Back Modi), as his next pit-stop was Kerala. Picking up the trend, Kerala too has shown that the PM is not welcome in their state. While the Tamils stated that they did not get the Centre’ help for Cyclone, farmers’ issues and destabilising their state government, Keralites mentioned their reasons as the recent Kerala floods, Sabarimala disturbance, etc. While each of these states have their own issues, one cannot help but observe how the Telugu states have lessons to learn from the unity among Tamils and Malayalis.

The two Telugu States, post a bitter bifurcation have, lost the affection and love for each other. Even politicians played to the gallery and raked up unnecessary sentiments for votes. The situation currently is so bad that people from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh act more like enemies though they do not have any personal differences. What is worse is that there is unity among the people of Telangana while people in Andhra Pradesh are a divided lot because of caste differences within the state.

Let us take Special Status for Andhra Pradesh: Every political party has a different stance on it. This fight among the political parties within AP has invariably divided its people too, leading to a lack of unity among themselves. Also, what they lack is the spirit to fight together for the cause. Similarly, in Telangana, there is a difference of opinion between political parties – one party wants to finish all the other. The battle between both Telugu states has gone to the extent where one state wants to belittle the other, its politicians want to fight the other. This complete lack of togetherness among Telugu people (who were united until 2014) has become an impediment for their own progress.

While the BJP is using its might to make its entry into every Southern state, its strategy to create inroads and bitterness have worked well with both Telugu states. While it could be the party’s political strategy, what the Telugu States can learn from the Tamil is the spirit of being together and not fighting among themselves. It is unfortunate that the people and the politicians in Telugu states are fighting amongst each other – showing that we are weak and can easily be provoked by any external force or vested interest that is trying to destabilize both the states.

May be, it is time for the Telugu people to wake up to their strength and not blame each other, but fight for their own future and development of their states.

It looks like Mega brother Nagababu is slowly but surely chipping in to support his younger brother Pawan Kalyan ahead of the 2019 general elections in Andhra Pradesh. Of late, Nagababu has been targeting Pawan’s political opponents like Balakrishna, Nara Lokesh and YS Jagan and has been making several controversial allegations against them on social media.

Now, Nagababu seems to have stepped into active politics to stand as a pillar of strength to Pawan. He recently visited East Godavari on a 3-day tour and interacted with a large number of Mega fans and Janasena cadres and discussed the ways to strengthen the party from the grassroot level.

Nagababu is also said to have planned to go on a statewide tour soon to meet with more and more Janasena sympathisers and common people in the coming few months in the run-up to the upcoming general elections. Meanwhile, although Nagababu’s satirical videos on opposition leaders are raising a few eyebrows, political analysts opine that the Mega brother’s lowbrow allegations are only causing more damage than good to Pawan’s political aspirations.