Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam   

Pavan Kalyan does a star turn

Photo: K.R. Deepak

On a roll: Yuva Rajyam president and actor Pavan Kalyan being cheered as he arrives at a public meeting near Fishing Harbour in the city on Tuesday. —

VISAKHAPATNAM: Notwithstanding the inordinate delay in the arrival of film star and Yuva Rajyam president Pavan Kalyan, scores of people, mostly fisher folk, waited in the hot sun to see and hear him address a public meeting near the Fishing Harbour on Wednesday.

The meeting was originally scheduled for 12 noon but was rescheduled for 2 p.m. Some people who came from far off places in the city arrived at noon The crowd swelled after 2 p.m. and people staying in two-storeyed buildings around the Fishing Harbour junction waited in the balconies and on roof tops to see the actor. The crowd grew restless after 3 p.m. and whenever some car made its way through the crowd on the road, they surged ahead in glee thinking that Pavan Kalyan had arrived. When he did arrive finally around 5 p.m., the crowd forgot the trouble they had undergone during the long wait and cheered him as he waved and greeted them with folded hands. Recalling his association with the city, he said it was in Visakhapatnam that he had learnt acting.

Pavan Kalyan impressed on the need for a change to reduce the present inequalities among the people. The change could be achieved only when the downtrodden sections were given political powerReferring to the Telugu Desam Party, he said its founder N.T. Rama Rao had floated that party with the slogan “Telugu vari atma gauravam” (self-respect of the Telugu people). NTR’ s successors had reduced that ideal to mean ‘self-respect of only a few dominant castes’. The objective of PRP was social justice through empowerment of the poor and lower middle classes. In an obvious reference to the TDP’ s poll promise, he said people should be empowered to stand on their own feet but not reduced to the level of seeking alms. He described Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy as a ‘feudalist’ who was interested only in welfare of his party men and charged him with ignoring the interests of the common man. PRP candidates for Visakhapatnam Lok Sabha seat Palla Srinivas Yadav, Visakhapatnam South Assembly segment Kola Guruvulu and Anakapalle Assembly segment Ganta Srinivasa Rao were among those who attended.

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