Andhra Pradesh Assembly Elections 2024: Pawan Kalyan likely to be offered deputy CM post

Amaravati: Janasena founder and actor Pawan Kalyan is likely to be offered the post of deputy chief minister in the N Chandrababu Naidu-led government in Andhra Pradesh.

DP chief Chandrababu Naidu will be sworn in as chief minister on Wednesday.

According to NDA sources, the new government may allot five to six ministerial berths to the allies Janasena and BJP.

Along with Pawan Kalyan, the party’s political affairs committee chairman Nadendla Manohar is also likely to be inducted into the cabinet. 

Pawan Kalyan, who won from Pithapuram assembly constituency, began his political journey with his older brother Chiranjeevi who founded the Praja Rajyam party in 2008.

However, he did not remain very active politically after his brother merged Praja Rajyam party into Congress.

Later Pawan Kalyan himself founded the Janasena party in 2014. Though he did not contest the 2014 elections, Kalyan extended outside support to the NDA alliance of the TDP and BJP, providing some tailwind to their victory.

He contested the 2019 elections but faced a debacle, losing all seats except one, the Razole Assembly seat. In the 2024 polls, the 55-year-old actor-politician played a key role in stitching together the NDA alliance of TDP, BJP and Janasena, and emerged triumphant with a landslide victory.

In a recent NDA meeting at the national capital, Prime Minister Narendra Modi described Kalyan as "Aandhi (storm)". TDP leader and Chandrababu Naidu’s son Nara Lokesh and TDP Andhra Pradesh President K Atchannaidu are also likely to be sworn in along with the CM designate.

Nara Lokesh, 41, is a former minister who handled the Information Technology Ministry of Andhra Pradesh in the erstwhile TDP government between 2014 and 2019. A Stanford MBA graduate, Lokesh has worked in the Bretton Woods institution of the World Bank before plunging into the state’s political landscape.

Though his initial foray into electoral politics in 2014 was a failure after he lost to YSRCP’s A Ramakrishna Reddy in Mangalagiri assembly constituency, Lokesh has endeared himself to the electorate in the past five years. His statewide 'Yuva Galam' padayatra proved key in propelling him to one of the largest victories in the 2024 polls in the Mangalagiri seat by a margin of over 90,000 votes.

BJP will have two berths in the Andhra Pradesh cabinet. The NDA comprising TDP, BJP and Janasena won a landslide victory in the recently concluded simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in the state, with a brute majority of 164 assembly and 21 Lok Sabha seats.

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