Hans News Service Amaravati

JanaSena Party (JSP) chief and Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan has signalled that his party will seek a significantly larger share of seats in the forthcoming urban local body elections, responding to growing demands from the cadre for greater political space within the NDA alliance. At a meeting of the Jana Sena legislative wing on Assembly premises on Thursday, Pawan Kalyan discussed the party’s performance during the recent Assembly session before turning to preparations for the municipal and municipal corporation elections.

Party MLAs and MLCs conveyed the strong sentiment among Jana Sainiks that the party should contest substantially more seats this time. During the 2024 elections, Jana Sena contested only 21 Assembly and two Lok Sabha seats as part of the NDA alliance, making what Pawan has repeatedly described as strategic sacrifices to defeat the then YSRCP government. The cadre now want that contribution to be reflected in the distribution of local body seats. Pawan acknowledged the sentiments of the party workers and indicated that Jana Sena would prepare an action plan to field candidates in a significant number of seats. He said the party would move forward while preserving the self-respect and fighting spirit of its cadre. Pawan later shared the details of the meeting on X, saying the party was preparing to contest a larger number of seats. The exact number or percentage of seats Jana Sena will seek has not yet been finalised. Preliminary discussions on the party’s demands were held during the legislative wing meeting.

The final allocation will be decided only after consultations with the NDA alliance partners. Jana Sena will now formulate its proposals for negotiations with the BJP and TDP. Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, BJP State president PVN Madhav and Pawan Kalyan are expected to hold discussions soon to finalise the seat-sharing formula. The local body elections are set to provide the first major test of the NDA’s internal seat-sharing balance after the alliance came to power in the State.