With mid-term elections to the Lok Sabha round the corner, it is party time in Andhra Pradesh with new outfits emerging on the political horizon.
If the resurgent movement for a separate Telangana state prompted former state home minister P Indra Reddy to launch the Telangana party, social justice for silent majority became the plank for noted Telugu film producer-director Dasari Narayana Rao to float a new regional outfit, Telugu Talli.
Emerging from a prolonged political exile, a sulking senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister Nadendla Bhaskar Rao bid adieu to Congress and announced plans to launch a regional party aligning with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Adding to the firepower of the battle for ballot was the announcement from Madiga Dandora, an organisation spearheading a movement for better share in reservations for the Madiga community, that it will contest from all the 42 Lok Sabha seats of the state.
Former state director general of police MV Bhaskar Rao, who had quit the job to launch a regional party, Andhra Nadu, is also likely to test the political waters, sources said.
Popular film star and expelled Telugu Desam MP Mohanbabu had also hinted at launching a new party as an alternative to the Congress and the Telugu Desam Party.
However, political observers say, Mohanbabu, a protege of Dasari Narayana Rao, wasnot likely to associate himself with Telugu Talli.
While floating the regional outfit on Friday last, Rao, known for his rabble-rousing films in a career spanning three decades, displayed soft corner for the BJP saying large number of people were being drawn towards it.
The timing of Raos political plunge assumed significance in the wake of the BJPs efforts to scout for zonal alliances in southern states.
Rao, who holds a record for directing the largest number of films (over 320) in the Telugu tinsel world, said his party would put up candidates for all seats in the forthcoming elections and fight for social justice and proportional representation in political power structure.
Rao, who had campaigned for Congress during the 1989 elections out of affection for Rajiv Gandhi, said people were disillusioned with both the Congress and the Telugu Desam Party in the state and asserted that his party would create history and usher in a social revolution.