What does Praja Rajyam Party stand for??
Every political party needs to have an ideology and identity to begin with. And for succeeding in electoral politics, this ideology needs to have emotional impact. Historically, you can see this in a number of examples, where political parties succeeded.
Take TeluguDesam, it started as a flag bearer for Telugu Pride, when there was no respect for elected Congress leaders from the state. BJP, it represented Hindu nationalism when Rajiv Gandhi succumbed to vote bank politics with a pseudo secular agenda to catapult itself from 2 parliament seats in '84 to 89 in '89. Take Telangana Rashtra Samiti for a separate Telangana state, BSP for Dalit Empowerment and so on.
All these parties have an identity with a strong ideological cause. It doesn't matter if they end up as any other vanilla flavor political party once they have created this voter base.
But the problem with Praja Rajyam is that it has a very mixed and confused message on what it stands for.
Before the party was announced, they organized a number of discussions with the lawyers, doctors, IT and other educated classes and recruited people who are not career politicians. By all accounts it appeared that they are headed to work on an Lok Satta like agenda with clean politics with a slogan of change. This goes very well with Chiranjeevi's image as a clean and fresh person who is entering the political arena to serve with out selfish motives. He has done many movies with social causes and is running a charitable trust that promotes blood and eye donations. His association with organizations helping blind and handicapped people adds to this image. And he also used his fan base to do some social service and changed the way these fan clubs behave to a good extent. The tag line that was later chosen 'Premae Lakshyam, Sevae Margam' also suits well for his image and his supposed vision of running a clean government with compassion. It all seemed right.
But the party is announced as an organization that would fight for social justice (Samajika Nyayam). It appeared that they are just trying to imitate the success of BSP in UP. This does not go with the image that Chiru has developed for 30 years. He was not associated in any way with the causes of BCs. Even the initial team he assembled hardly had any BC leader. After this, the party started recruiting hard core politicians from other parties and carry a lot of baggage. Chiru continued to push the message of 'Change' after filling up the party with career politicians.
When the candidates for the Assembly are announced, the fan clubs who stood behind him for ever, the cadre that was built so far, the educated class that was looking forward to his entry and the clean non political team he assembled - got disillusioned and started leaving the party, some silently and some making a lot of noise. Those leaving the party and the accusations of taking money for nominations (thanks also to the coverage by media keen to break him) hurt the party beyond recovery.
Now the party having received a major setback in the elections, didn't seem to realize this major branding mistake. Despite some borrowed leaders leaving the party, the remaining bunch is going forward with the stated purpose of 'Social Justice/ BC Party'. But actions doesn't follow the stated goal. But the small agitations the party has conducted also have nothing to do with their 'Social Justice' brand. Chiru continues to make efforts to present himself as a clean politician (which I believe he is) and not as a representative of BC cause.
If PRP wants to succeed, it either has to own up to its mistakes and fashion itself as the party of Change pointing the corruption and the incompetence in system. Which I would love to see.
OR, go full force as a BC party demanding reservations in everything, crying injustice every time a BC is involved, no matter the truth. In which case they might have better chances for success, but it will make me sadder.
If they do neither, just pray to their SUN god for some miracle.
Posts
