Kapu ideologue and veteran politician ended all the suspense by formally joining the YSRCP on Friday. He was warmly welcomed into the party by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and YSRCP chief YS Jaganmohan Reddy at the latter’s residence cum camp office in Tadepalli.

While the YSRCP leaders and cadre would be upbeat with this much-anticipated event, it is certain to keep Janasena chief Pawan Kalyan on tenterhooks for obvious reasons. Interestingly, Mudragada’s induction into the ruling party comes close on the heels of the Janasena chief finally disclosing his candidature from the Pithapuram Assembly seat.

As per speculative news, YS Jagan reportedly entrusted Mudragada with the key task of shouldering YSRCP’s campaigning in the two Godavari districts. The idea is to counter the TDP-Janasena-BJP combine and nullify its scope to tap in the votes of the dominant Kapu community in this region. Against this backdrop, the veteran leader is also expected to play a highly proactive role within the Kakinada Parliamentary constituency where Pawan Kalyan is going to try his luck with both Assembly and Lok Sabha contests.

It is speculated that the veteran Kapu leader would not be entering the electoral fray but he would actively campaign for the YSRCP to ensure maximum gains in terms of seats for the ruling party. Despite being out of the reckoning for a while, Mudragada continues to enjoy popular support in several pockets of the two Godavari districts. The ruling party is precisely planning to bank on this ‘X factor’ to counter-balance the TDP-BJP-Janasena combine.

Long before the BJP joined the alliance mix, both the TDP and Janasena have been seriously eyeing the Kapu vote bank in the region. The two have realised that reaping significant gains in the two Godavari districts is a quintessential necessity in their objective to come to power in the state. It was rumoured that, with this precise intention, Chandrababu Naidu, as part of his deep-rooted plan, made Pawan Kalyan concentrate his last year’s Varahi yatra entirely in this region.

Mudragada’s entry into YSRCP is certain to sound danger bells, not just for the NDA alliance but even to Pawan Kalyan at a personal level. With the humiliating twin defeats in 2019 elections at the back of his mind, the Janasena chief had been overly cautious in keeping his places of contest under tight wraps. Until he disclosed Pithapuram as his chosen Assembly seat on Thursday, he kept oscillating between a host of constituencies in what looked like a strategy to keep everyone guessing, including the ruling party.

This earned him an unwanted image of a ‘timid politician’ which paled in contrast to his public posturing where he would bully and threaten YS Jagan at the drop of the hat. It is very obvious that the Power Star does not want the mistakes of the past to repeat this time so that he fulfils his dream of entering any of the legislative houses with relative ease.

Having seen his strategies in the last few months, many in the realm of politics believe that Pawan Kalyan is scared of the ‘Jagan factor’ which can once again curtail his electoral prospects for the second successive time. For this reason, he reportedly planned to keep his chosen constituencies as a closely-guarded secret till the very last minute. This way, he thinks, he could pre-empt his opponents from employing counter-strategies for his defeat.

But to his misfortune, the ruling YSRCP appeared to have read his mind well enough and kept feigning ignorance of his moves, especially his jump from one constituency to another. Finally, when it mattered most, the ruling party has deftly played its cards to rope in Mudragada Padmanabham to its fold. With the battlelines almost clear now, more specifically in the case of Pawan Kalyan, the party has entrusted its newest entrant with the responsibility of ensuring the victory of its candidates in both the Godavari districts.

Pawan Kalyan will have no one else but himself to blame for this. Ironically, Mudragada was well within the grasp of Janasena until a few days ago. He was widely believed to be ready to join the party if there was a formal invitation from its leader. Pawan Kalyan was expected to visit the veteran leader and invite him into his party but for some strange reason, the plan fizzled out. It was whispered that Pawan ignored Mudragada at the behest of Chandrababu Naidu who sees a potential ‘thorn in the flesh’ in future in the veteran leader.

Pawan Kalyan is said to have zeroed in on Pithapuram, lured by the 91,000-strong Kapu vote base there. But, the alliance partners are facing their biggest challenge there in the wake of violent protests from the camp of TDP’s SVSN Varma. A strong contender for the TDP ticket here, Varma is threatening to stay in fray as an independent and upset the alliance plans for Pawan Kalyan’s victory.

With the YSRCP now bringing Mudragada into picture, the road is only going to become bumpier for the Power Star in search of the all-elusive electoral victory.