Is Pawan Kalyan trying to be Yogi Adityanath of the South?

Starting as a Left-leaning politician influenced by Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan has taken a hard Hindutva turn. This is how and why the Jana Sena Party chief is trying to be the Yogi Adityanath of the South.

"Ye Pawan nahi, ye aandhi hai," Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared while praising Pawan Kalyan after the 2024 election results. Modi was describing how the politician from Andhra Pradesh wasn't a gentle breeze but a storm that helped the coalition of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Jana Sena Party (JSP) blow away all the stumbling blocks to power in the southern state. Now, Pawan Kalyan is trying to do what no one else other than the BJP has tried to do -- become the Hindu Hriday Samrat of the South.

Pawan Kalyan, on November 4, spoke about how "Hindus are a global minority" and are facing persecution in several countries. His post on X came after the attack on the Hindu Sabha temple in Canada's Brampton by a Khalistani mob.

On November 2, Kalyan announced the formation of the Narasimha Varahi Brigade, which would be dedicated to the protection of Sanatana Dharma in twin Telugu states -- Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

“While we respect churches and mosques, we will also ensure that any act that hurts Hindu sentiments will have consequences. Any posts on social media that mock Hinduism or Sanatana Dharma will not be tolerated," he saida.

But why has Pawan Kalyan, who once used Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara as his icon, taken to hardcore Hindutva politics? And is he trying to be the Yogi Adityanath of South India?

The story starts much before actor-politician Pawan Kalyan turned into an aandhi (storm).

PAWAN KALYAN, A FAN OF FIDEL CASTRO, CHE GUEVARA

In 2024, his JSP achieved the unthinkable in Andhra political history. It achieved a strike rate of 100%, and won all the 21 Assembly seats and the two Lok Sabha seats it contested.

This was quite a turnaround for the Jana Sena Party's performance in 2019, when it allied with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Left parties. Pawan Kalyan lost both the seats and his JSP won just one of the 137 seats it contested.

It was between 2014 and 2019 that Pawan Kalyan found his political heart to his left. The JSP campaign vehicles of 2019 had Che Guevara images. He told The Hindu that he drew inspiration from Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro and Bengal's Marxist-Leninist leader Charu Majumdar.

With youngsters as his core support base, his Left-leaning ideology worked well.

Pawan Kalyan cut his teeth in politics in his brother Chiranjeevi's Praja Rajyam Party as the head of its youth wing.

He launched the Jana Sena Party only after Chiranjeevi merged his party with the Congress in 2013, and became the Union Minister of State (Independent charge) for tourism.

In 2014, after Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated, Pawan Kalyan launched JSP but didn't contest the polls. He backed Chandra Babu Naidu's TDP and the BJP.

In 2019, the BJP, the TDP and the JSP contested separately. It was Pawan Kalyan who got the three together for the 2024 elections. He was the cement in the alliance against YSRCP's Jagan Mohan Reddy.

Now the Deputy Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Pawan Kalyan, is using the anti-Jagan plank and pro-Hindutva to grow his voter base.

WHY PAWAN KALYAN IS TRYING TO BE YOGI ADITYANATH OF SOUTH

Pawan Kalyan hails from the Kapu community, which constitutes around 26% of Andhra Pradesh's population. It is a backward peasant community from the coastal Godavari delta region of Andhra Pradesh.

The Kapus have been aspiring to have a chief minister from the community and had backed Chiranjeevi's Praja Rajyam Party earlier when it won 18 seats in the 2009 election with an 18% vote share. Earlier, the community had also sided with the Congress and the TDP.

With the support of the Kappu community, especially of its youth, strongly behind him, Pawan Kalyan is looking to expand his voter base.

And that is why the championing of the Hindutva cause.

Come to think of it, no regional party from the South has tried to harness the Hindu vote, except for fringe rabble-rousers like Sri Ram Sene of Karnataka.

The southern states have at best seen fringe Hindutva outfits like Sri Ram Sene play the Hindutva card and there is a big scope of harnessing Hindu votes in the twin Telugu states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

"Secularism in this country should not be a one-way affair," the actor-politician said after the Tirupati Tirumala laddu controversy. "We won't keep quiet if you speak as you please about Sanatana Dharma," he added.

So identical is Pawan Kalyan's Hindutva appeal that his critics have called his party a "proxy for the BJP".

Not just in ideology but in maintaining law-and-order too, Pawan Kalyan might be looking at the model of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu hriday samrat of north and central India.

“These criminals should be dealt with in the same fashion as Yogi Adityanath does in Uttar Pradesh," he was quoted as saying at a rally by news agency PTI. His remarks came after a 3-year-old was sexually assaulted.

"You need to be like Yogi Adityanath," Pawan Kalyan advised Home Minister Vangalapudi Anitha, who's from the TDP, even threatening to take away the ministry from her.

In both Hindutva politics and style of governance, Pawan Kalyan might be trying to emerge as the Yogi Adityanath of the South. He might have sensed there was space for a Hindu hriday Samrat in South India.