HYDERABAD: The month-long relationship between Mana Party and the Praja Rajyam seems to be on the rocks.
The PRP feels badly let down, with president Chiranjeevi stating during the constituency-wise analysis exercise that the Mana Party had taken the elections lightly, a charge echoed by vice-president Devender Goud in a press conference.
That Mana Party president Kasani Gnaneswar has not been seen at PRP dos is an indicator of the fraught relationship between the two parties. He has not been spotted at either the PRP office or at Chiranjeevi’s residence since the end of polling on April 23. In fact, Gnaneswar last appeared with the actor-turned-politician in Tirupati, when the latter was campaigning there.
The Praja Rajyam had entered into an alliance with the Mana Party just two weeks before the first phase poll and allotted it two parliamentary and 8 Assembly constituencies.
Differences cropped up between the two parties, with Rangareddy and Mahaboobnagar district bitterly complaining to Chiranjeevi in their respective poll performance meetings that the Mana Party candidates had been utterly lackadaisical.
The Rangareddy district leaders said that Gnaneswar, a candidate from the Chevella Lok Sabha Parliamentary constituency, had been seen campaigning just once or twice. They went so far as to allege that Mana Party candidates who got tickets under the agreement with Praja Rajyam had sold out to either the Congress or the Telugu Desam.
Chiranjeevi has been understandably perturbed at these reports. Gnaneswar has not been invited to programs held since the polls, nor has Chiranjeevi had any discussion with him.
Though so far no announcement has publicly been made on a parting of the ways, the PRP will slowly but surely sideline it, and not enter into any understanding with it in local body elections.