PRP - Review

April 5, 2009

1. Siranjeevi spent more than a year on speculation and media hype to launch his party. To everyone's surprise the party was strangely lacking in agenda, which is the main requisite of a political party. Everyone was wondering what he did in that one year, haven't all the big people whom he met gave him political direction and ideas? or has he simply forgotten them?

2. After much pressure from the political parties, he disclosed his casteist agenda, camouflaged as Samajika Nyayam. It was no where reflected in the Party Organisation with all the important positions in the party being shared by family members making it a Kutumba nyayam rather than Samajika nyayam. Disgruntled with this state of affairs, leaders like Naragoni, Katari, Nani etc. started leaving the party.

3. Instead of concentrating on building his fans into socially responsible leaders, Chiranjeevi right from the beginning negotiated with important leaders of other parties and brought them into his fold. Even those leaders were feeling directionless and hopeless in this new party.

4. The party had failed to attract the imagination of women who constitute 50% of our population. The family affairs of chiranjeevi, particularly the way his brother cheated on his first wife and also lack of respect for women leaders in the party created an aversion among this group for this party.

5. Leaders who are ignorant of chiranjeevi's real intensions might have jumped to PRP. Thanks to the string operation which opened his mind asking his followers to spy on them only created panic among the leaders in the party. This shows Chiranjeevi's lack of respect and trust for leaders other than his family members.

6. At a time when things seemed going well for the PRP party, bang came the Yuvagarjana which was a huge success and created a record of sorts in the political history of Andhra pradesh. It galvanised the TDP party, gave confidence and boost to the party cadre and also at the same time demoralised the PRP party. This incident can be seen as a first step towards the backtrend of PRP.

7. Chiranjeevi lacked the punch and power in his speeches to attract the common voter. To recover from this handicap, he brought in his younger brother and made him the president of the youth wing, much to the dislike of other leaders in the party. Though his brother created some media sensation initially could not uplift the morale of the party. Infact rather with his silly behavior in public like drinking toddy and setting a wrong example to youth, he has given sufficent fodder for the other parties to attack him. His family issue became a major issue and unable to face the criticism, he had to remarry the same women with whom he was staying together for long and had a son too.

Courtesy: ACF