Opinion: The BJP-fication of Pawan Kalyan — backing Sanatana Dharma, now the Yogi treatment

Pawan Kalyan's stand on Sanatana Dharma in the wake of the Tirumala temple laddoo controversy saw him forming a new party wing, the Narasimha Varahi Brigade, aimed at taking people who speak disrespectfully about Sanatana Dharma on social media and elsewhere to task.

Ask anyone who has worked with Chandrababu Naidu in his different terms as chief minister, and you are likely to hear tales about how tough a taskmaster he is. But now in his latest innings, Naidu has competition from his deputy, Pawan Kalyan. On Monday, in a no-holds barred criticism of the police department in Andhra Pradesh, the deputy chief minister tore into his cabinet colleague, V Anitha, who is the Home Minister of Andhra Pradesh.

"I am telling Home Minister Anitha that she should be proactive. There should not be a situation where I would have to take over as the Home Minister. Things will change drastically if I take over as Home Minister,'' Pawan Kalyan thundered. What's significant about this takedown was that it happened on a public platform in Pithapuram — Pawan Kalyan's constituency — and not behind closed doors or during a Cabinet meeting.

The context was the rising cases of crimes against women in Andhra Pradesh. More specifically, the rape and murder of a three-year-old girl in the Tirupati district on November 1. In fact, Pawan's sharp dressing down was in response to what Anitha had said a day before when she had praised Naidu for "strengthening'' the police department.

"Several cases had gone unnoticed in the previous YSRCP regime. That doesn't happen now,'' she had said. Pawan clearly did not seem to agree with Anitha's self-congratulatory pat on her own back and did not mince words while taking the police force to the cleaners.

The Telugu Desam, to which Anitha belongs in the NDA coalition government in Andhra Pradesh, is not used to anyone except Naidu taking ministers or officials to task. Therefore, the public condemnation of such a crucial department by Pawan Kalyan of the Jana Sena, who is the TDP's ally, was an out-of-syllabus kind of situation.

For one, Pawan's criticism goes against the spirit of collective responsibility. At the state level, it also makes the equation between the allies a little uncomfortable. As chief minister, Naidu is responsible for allocation of portfolios and the performance of the ministers. Pawan Kalyan's opinion, of course, matters when it concerns a minister of the Jana Sena like Civil Supplies Minister Nadendla Manohar. But if he has an issue with a minister who is a member of the TDP or the BJP, the coalition dharma demands that such feedback should be given to the chief minister and the minister concerned in private.

Two, it raises the question whether Pawan Kalyan is eyeing a bigger and more significant portfolio for himself in Andhra Pradesh. Not that the deputy chief minister has lightweight portfolios now. Besides being the only deputy chief minister, the actor-turned-politician is minister for Panchayat Raj, Rural development, Rural Water supply, Environment, Forests, Science and Technology.

More importantly, Pawan Kalyan's outburst meant a public admission of the Home Ministry's inability to get its act together. Though Pawan Kalyan berated the YSRCP by terming the law and order problem a legacy of the Jagan Mohan Reddy dispensation, he also ended up giving the opposition a handle to beat the government with. Since June, the YSRCP has been criticising the law and order situation in Andhra Pradesh and these remarks by the number 2 in the government, no less, have only given them fresh ammunition.

But why the Pawan talk has a resonance beyond the politics of Andhra Pradesh is because in the same speech, he called for Yogi Adityanath kind of treatment to offenders. "These criminals should be dealt with in the same fashion as Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh does. Until then, they will not listen. You are pushing us into that kind of situation,'' he said. Indirectly, this amounts to saying that the Naidu model of governance lacks the power that the Yogi model has in Uttar Pradesh and won't amuse the TDP.

This is significant because this is not the first time Pawan has shown proximity to the BJP model of governance and thinking. His stand on Sanatana Dharma in the wake of the Tirumala temple laddoo controversy saw him forming a new party wing, the Narasimha Varahi Brigade, aimed at taking people who speak disrespectfully about Sanatana Dharma on social media and elsewhere to task.

Earlier, he had advocated a national law to protect Sanatana Dharma and establish a Sanatana Dharma Protection Board. He had also proposed Sanatana Dharma certification to ensure purity in materials used for temple offerings and prasadam.

Is Pawan Kalyan going ballistic a matter of worry? Yes and no. No because he remains invested in the NDA model in Andhra Pradesh, which frankly may not have materialised but for his strategic moves post-September 2023, when Naidu was jailed. Yes, because it means Pawan, who was praised as an ‘aandhi’ (storm) by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will not remain content being a junior partner to the TDP forever. Is this censure of the handling of the Home Ministry then like testing waters to see how the TDP reacts to such a critique?

At a personal level, Pawan Kalyan is also attempting to bury the label of ‘Package Star’ that the YSRCP threw at him all these years, alleging that his politics was largely dependent on the script provided by Naidu. The Pithapuram speech is an indication that Pawan Kalyan wants to be seen as a politically autonomous entity. And if Pawan-speak in the last few weeks is anything to go by, he is more at home with the BJP and the Hindutva brand of politics.

(Views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author)