“Pawan nahi aandhi hai,” Narendra Modi praises…

Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi on June 7 referred to actor-turned-politician and Jana Sena Party (JSP) president Pawan Kalyan as a “storm” (aandhi).

While addressing the elected MPs of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the Central Hall of the Old Parliament, Narendra Modi highlighted the performance of the BJP and its allies in the recently concluded general elections.

He said that, for the first time in Indian history, a BJP leader has been elected to the lower house of Parliament from Kerala, referring to actor-turned-politician Suresh Gopi, who won from Thrissur.

Read: TDP seeks five cabinet berths at Centre, two for its ally Jana Sena

Gopi received 412,338 votes, defeating CPI’s VS Sunil Kumar (337,652 votes) by a margin of 74,686 votes, according to data available on the Election Commission of India (ECI) website.

“We have been winning in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, and I was asking Babu (Chandrababu Naidu) about the performance in Andhra Pradesh, and he told me it was historical.”

Pointing at Pawan Kalyan, who was seated next to the dais, Modi said, “And what you see, Pawan, he is not a breeze; he is a storm.”

Modi said that Andhra Pradesh has given a landslide mandate to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

Naidu-led TDP won 16 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the recently concluded general election, the Jana Sena won two, and the BJP won three as part of a seat-sharing agreement.

Kalyan’s party also made significant strides in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly polls. The Jana Sena Party, which contested 21 Assembly and two Lok Sabha constituencies, performed well by winning all the seats it contested.

Meanwhile, Narendra Modi was unanimously named as the leader of the NDA alliance in the Parliament on Friday, TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu, Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar, JD(S) MP-elect HD Kumaraswamy and other leaders part of the alliance supporting the proposal.