Rise of Jana Sena Party scripted by ‘Power Star’ – from 2019 poll ashes to 2024 glory

Like a scene straight out of one of his films where he pulls back from the brink to prevail over the villains, the 55-year-old actor-turned-politician Pawan Kalyan, dubbed “Power Star”, seems to have pulled off a similar feat in Andhra Pradesh’s political arena with his Jana Sena Party (JSP) achieving a 100% strike rate against various odds – winning all 21 Assembly and two Lok Sabha seats it contested as part of the NDA alliance – in the just-concluded simultaneous polls in the state.

However, unlike the scenarios of Kalyan’s films, the JSP’s journey to the centre stage of Andhra Pradesh politics has been a long and arduous one. It all started on March 14, 2014, as Andhra awaited its bifurcation for creation of the new Telangana state, when Kalyan formally announced the formation of the JSP. His address to thousands of his supporters then made people believe that a new political force was taking shape.

“Kalyan knew that the Jagan Mohan Reddy-led YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) was going to be a force to reckon with in truncated Andhra Pradesh and hence floated the JSP, and immediately announced support to the NDA,” a close aide of Kalyan told The Indian Express.

Though Kalyan or the JSP did not contest the 2014 polls, the party supported the N Chandrababu Naidu-led TDP, which was then also a part of the BJP-led NDA. However, sources said, he did not then get enough “respect” from the TDP and fell out with the NDA over the demand for a Special Category Status (SCS) for Andhra. The TDP too had walked out of the NDA in February 2018 over the same issue.

The JSP’s electoral debut came in 2019, when it contested the synchronised Assembly and Lok Sabha elections in the state in alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Left.