VIZAG: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to meet Tollywood actor and Jana Sena Party leader Pawan Kalyan when he lands here on Friday night to take part in a number of events the following day.

Later on in the day, the Jana Sena leader would arrive at the port city and meet with the prime minister at about 8.30 p.m. The meeting will take place at the hotel where Modi would be staying,  Jana Sena sources said.

N. Manohar, the head of the Jana Sena political affairs committee, is also most likely to attend the meeting with Pawan Kalyan. The meeting was scheduled based on the information from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).

This will be a big political step in Andhra Pradesh because BJP supporter Pawan Kalyan is eager to form a broad opposition coalition to challenge the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), which is now in power, in the 2024 elections.

The actor, a vehement opponent of Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, had said a few months prior that he was awaiting a blueprint from the BJP to remove the YSRCP from power.

The meeting is important because Pawan Kalyan wants the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) to be an ally in order to prevent the division of anti-YSRCP votes in the upcoming elections.

The TDP-BJP coalition received Pawan Kalyan's support in the 2014 elections for the state Assembly and the Lok Sabha. Despite not running for office, Jana Sena campaigned for the coalition and spoke at a few public events alongside Prime Minister Modi and TDP leader N. Chandrababu Naidu.

Jana Sena had later severed relations with both BJP and TDP for not awarding special category status to Andhra Pradesh as agreed at the time of breakup of the state in 2014.

In 2019, Jana Sena ran for office in coalition with Left-leaning parties and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), but it only managed to win one seat in the 175-member Assembly, and Pawan Kalyan himself was unsuccessful in both of his bids.

In 2020, Jana Sena and the BJP agreed to restore their partnership. They haven't started a combined programme on people's issues yet, though.

The offer by Pawan Kalyan to resurrect the coalition with the TDP is also rejected by the state-level BJP leaders. On Saturday, the Prime Minister will formally lay the groundwork for a number of projects in Visakhapatnam.

Also, he will speak at a public gathering that Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy is most likely to attend. For the past few days, there have been rumours regarding Pawan Kalyan's attendance at the open meeting.

The BJP leaders in the state remained silent on this.

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