Pawan Kalyan to contest 2019 elections

Popular Telugu actor and Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan on Thursday announced that he will contest the Andhra Pradesh assembly elections in 2019.

He made the announcement while addressing a public meeting here.

Pawan said his party's first office would come up in Anantapur.

The actor-politician had last month decided to register himself as a voter in Eluru town of Andhra Pradesh.

Pawan, who is a voter in Hyderabad, had asked his aides to take necessary steps to transfer his name to the voters' list in Eluru town in West Godavari district.

He once again targeted Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for denying special status to Andhra Pradesh and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) for accepting it.

Pawan asked the two parties not to hurt the self-respect of people of the state and not to play with their sentiments.

He rubbished the claims by the central government that under special package it was giving the state same assistance which it would have got with the special category status.

Describing the package as "jugglery of numbers", he said that while Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has stated that the state is being given Rs 2.03 lakh crore, another central minister M. Venkaiah Naidu has put the figure at Rs 2.25 lakh crore.

Pawan quoted financial experts to say that the state would have anyway got Rs.1.70 lakh crore with or without special package.

Stating that he respect Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Pawan said he can't keep quiet when injustice was done to the state.

He also alleged that corruption was growing under TDP rule in the state.

This was the third public meeting addressed by Pawan since August, targeting both BJP and TDP.

The actor had floated Jana Sena on the eve of 2014 elections but campaigned for the BJP-TDP alliance.

--IANS

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