PALACOLE: With just three days to go for the final battle of the Andhra Political League on April 23, megastar Chiranjeevi is struggling to hit form.
How many runs will he score on his home turf, Palacole, the paddy-rich coastal town in West Godavari district, and will they be enough to ensure his maiden entry into the Assembly? Well, no one seems to have a definite answer to this and that such a doubt should exist among locals on the election of the most popular actor is a reflection of the tough fight Chiranjeevi is facing from his two rivals: B Usharani of the Congress and Dr Ch Satyanarayana Murthy of the Telugu Desam.
To put it in cricketing parlance, Chiranjeevi’s problem is akin to a batsman who can score runs only on one side, unable to pierce the field on all sides.
Caught, as his party is, in a caste conundrum, even the kind of popularity he enjoys doesn’t seem to be enough to get him unstinted support from other communities.
An inflatable balloon carrying an image of Chiranjeevi and his election symbol, rail engine, greets one as one enters this town which is known for its rice mills. It also happens to be the native place of Chiranjeevi’s father-in-law, well-known Telugu comedian, the late Allu Ramalingaiah. It’s not very far from the actor’s native Mogulturu village but one does not find any sense of elation among locals that they have now an opportunity to elect the biggest Telugu star after NT Rama Rao.
Also, there is a disconnect between the family and the native place over the past four decades with all of them having settled in Hyderabad. That actually makes Chiranjeevi a non-local while the other two contestants are locals.
In a constituency with a voter strength of 1.45 lakh, Kapus, the community to which Chiranjeevi belongs, number around 35,000. An equal number belong to the upper castes while the rest are from Backward Classes and Scheduled Castes. That the TDP nominee, the sitting legislator, also belongs to the Kapu community and carries a good image has made Chiru’s task that much tougher. Lack of an organisational structure which is synonymous with PRP is evident even in Palacole.
The actor filed his nomination a fortnight ago and after that, there was no visible activity, leave alone door-to-door campaign, by party cadre barring a couple of campaign vehicles that crisscross the town. In between, both the Congress and TDP nominees have finished one round of campaign and have ‘‘taken care’’ of the voters.
It was only on Sunday, Chiru’s family members, including his wife and daughter, landed in the town to campaign on his behalf.
‘‘It is certainly not a cakewalk for Chiranjeevi, however big his image is.
The other two are equally strong and it could be anybody’s game,’’ summed up a 30-year-old man sipping tea in a bus shelter. ‘‘Our doctor has done so much for us. Why should we ignore him now?’’ asked a rickshaw-puller.
A recent statement made by a senior Praja Rajyam leader that Chiranjeevi would retain Palacole (he is also contesting from the temple town of Tirupati) in the event of winning both is being interpreted as an attempt at boosting support for him in Palacole.
What the statement has done is to dim Chiru’s prospects in Tirupati with rivals emphasising that there is no point in electing someone who is going to vacate the seat. But, whether the assurance will tilt the scales in his favour in Palacole is a big question.
In Bhimavaram, the commercial centre of West Godavari where betting is a part of daily life, wagers initially put money in favour of Chiranjeevi winning with a margin of 20,000. A week after nomination, it has gone down to 10,000 and by Sunday, the wagers reduced the margin to 4,000.