The Praja Rajyam Party seems to be facing lot of problems even as it is completing one year of its existence shortly and its chief, megastar Chiranjeevi, is celebrating his birthday on Saturday
The party floated by Telugu film industry's superstar Chiranjeevi was launched last year on 26th August in Tirupati in a grand way with more than ten lakh people attending its grand launch.
But ever since its big launch, the party has been plagued with several problems including infighting and fall in the morale of party cadres.
The party has also been severely criticized for being non democratic as all the decisions are being taken by the members of Chiranjeevi's family in general, and the actor's brother-in-law Allu Arvind in particular. The big fall for the party came in the last general elections when the party failed to win even one Lok Sabha seat and was able to win 20 of the 294 seats it had contested for the assembly elections.
Now the party is again facing crisis after the publication of a news report in Andhra Pradesh's leading daily Ee Nadu that the party will be merging with the Congress shortly.
Ee Nadu is owned by industrialist Ramoji Rao who owns the biggest media house in Andhra Pradesh and is also the creator of Ramoji Film City, the biggest film city in the country.
A fuming Chiranjeevi addressed mediapersons on Thursday immediately after the publication of this news and criticised the newspaper for deliberately carrying out a vicious and orchestrated campaign against his party for the last three months. He denied that his party, which is yet to complete one year, is to merge with the Congress as reported in the daily.
"Some vested interests in the media are trying to eliminate Praja Rajyam from the political map of Andhra Pradesh. They are more interested to bring back Telugu Desam to power," charged Chiranjeevi, apparently hinting at the closeness of the media baron Ramoji Rao with Telugu Desam supremo Chandrababu Naidu.
Both Rao and Naidu belong to the Kamma caste while Chiranjeevi belongs to the Kapu caste which has a strong influence in the coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh.
"Media should encourage new parties to strengthen democracy instead of allowing the Congress and the TDP to enjoy power. They want to crush the PRP completely so that it will not emerge as a ruling party," Chiranjeevi said.
However, Chiranjeevi's main worry is about rumours that some of the party MLA's are seriously considering crossing over to the Congress in a few days.
There are many legislators from the Praja Rajyam, like Sreedhara Krishna Reddy from Nellore and Ganta Sreenivasa Rao from Anakapalle, who have won the elections on their own influence and are now interested to be with the ruling party to get into some influential posts in administration. It is also a known fact that there were several Congress leaders who had joined the Praja Rajyam, fully knowing that their ticket-seeking aspirations would not bear fruit in the party.
Chiranjeevi's press conference triggered off protests from Praja Rajyam volunteers who went to the Ee Nadu office to protest against the publication of this news item. and later released them.
