Comedian Prudhvi Raj Does Lagadapati in Poll Predictions

Vijayawada: The political parties are gearing up for upcoming assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh next year. Numerous pre-poll surveys by leading pollsters predict a second term with landslide victory for ruling YSRCP. The surveys unanimously declare that Jagan Mohan Reddy will become the chief minister of the state yet again. 

As the YSRCP juggernaut is ready to roll on, TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu has partnered with Pawan Kalyan's Jana Sena Party ahead of assembly elections. However, the TDP realised that Pawan Kalyan may not be quite helpful to bolster the party’s electoral prospects. Disappointed with the pre-poll survey results, Chandrababu Naidu is now looking at the election strategist Prashant Kishor for help in the upcoming elections. 

Recently, Tollywood actor-comedian Balireddy Prudhvi Raj made a tongue-in-cheek comment on the state assembly polls. The comedian's prediction that the TDP-Janasena alliance will win 135 assembly and 25 parliamentary seats in the assembly and general elections respectively was apparently a comment made in jest. While the comment was made humorously, some have criticized Prudhvi’s jokes as inappropriate because the survey projections show YSRCP is still a dominant force in Andhra politics. Earlier, former MP Lagadapati Rajagopal had also made faulty predictions about the TDP’s electoral victory in the 2019 Assembly elections.

The TDP supporters were quick to draw parallels between Prudhvi and Paul the Octopus, famous Octopodidae which predict the football world cup winners, and termed the comedian as ‘Andhra Octopus’. In the previous many people who had placed their best based on comical predictions such as these lost crores of rupees when YSRCP swept the assembly elections, leaving Lagadapati Rajagopal embarrassed. It seems comedian Prudhvi is trying to fill the void left by Lagadapati with his 2024 "parrot predictions" favoring TDP-Janasena combine.

The Tollywood comedian was associated with YSRCP prior to the 2019 elections. Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy had appointed Prudhvi as chairman and director of devotional channel SV Bhakti Channel (SVBC) run by Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD). However, he lost this prestigious position after the audiotape episode and later, he gradually distanced himself from YSRCP.

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