Beware of divisive forces seeking to exploit caste for political gain, warns Pawan Kalyan

Jana Sena President K. Pawan Kalyan addressing a meeting near Mangalagiri on Saturday.

Jana Sena Party (JSP) president and Deputy Chief Minister K. Pawan Kalyan on Saturday said he would never play the caste card for political gain.

“The entire Kapu community is being dragged into politics by divisive forces and I have been identified as a Kapu as part of the conspiracy. Those who want to create unrest in the society are using caste to achieve their goals,” Mr. Pawan Kalyan insisted, urging the JSP cadres to foil their plans.

In a JSP information gathering committee meeting near Mangalagiri, Mr. Pawan Kalyan said that he would like the country to have communal hostels instead of separate hostels for Backward Classes and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes children as there are constant attempts to divide the society in the name of caste. He called for efforts to unify the castes to achieve the larger goal of national integration.

The YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) would do all sorts of political manipulations in the name of caste to undermine the coalition government, the Deputy Chief Minister said, stressing the need for political empowerment of all castes.

He argued that it is in the nature of the YSRCP to support even criminals depending on their caste and that by highlighting the caste identity (Kapu) of a criminal who was in the news recently, the entire community was marked in a special way.

Mr. Pawan Kalyan said that JSP leaders and cadres should stand by the ideologies of the party and strive to reach higher internal positions on merit and not expect their caste or other considerations to bring them political dividends.

He said that the Janasainiks and Veera Mahilas were the JSP torchbearers and he would keep a close eye on how long the aspiring leader worked for the party and how much he served the people.

This would be the only criterion for achieving political hierarchy, the JSP chief noted. Mr. Pawan Kalyan said that JSP was never against welfare schemes but it would be a serious mistake to focus too much on it at the cost of development. He noted that the systems that were destroyed by the YSRCP government have been restored with proper focus on education, healthcare and infrastructure which are crucial for the state to achieve the desired progress.

Published – 27 Jun 2026 20:58 IST