‘I wanted to pick up gun’: Pawan Kalyan admits he wanted to be a Naxalite at 17 before Chiranjeevi stopped him

Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister and Jana Sena Party chief Pawan Kalyan made a personal disclosure during his recent podcast with ANI. The actor-politician admitted that during his late teens, he had seriously considered joining the Naxalite movement and “picking up the gun.”

The conversation began as a wide-ranging political discussion. But it took an unexpected turn when Pawan Kalyan opened up about a period of deep personal unrest in his formative years.

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‘Directionless rage’ drove the thought

Pawan Kalyan traced the origin of his political journey to raw anger he felt as a teenager. He said he was disturbed by systemic injustice and the politics of appeasement. He described the feeling as a “directionless fury” with no clear outlet.

“I was a teenager, and I felt that same anger. If you ask me why I entered politics, it was because of that anger. I felt deeply concerned for society and frustrated by so many things. I was searching for answers and looking in multiple directions in life. I had a kind of mad rage. I don’t know what it was, but it was a directionless fury. I’m telling you, I searched for paths to revolution,” he said.

When the interviewer remarked that he found the answer in politics rather than revolution, Pawan Kalyan did not hesitate. He revealed that the Naxalite path had crossed his mind. “I entertained even getting into Naxalites,” he said plainly.

The interviewer asked directly: “You wanted to become a Naxal?” He confirmed it. “One point of time when I was in late teens, yes.” When asked if he had wanted to take up arms, he replied: “Yes, I wanted to pick up the gun.”

Chiranjeevi’s role

Reportedly, it was his eldest brother Chiranjeevi who steered him away from that path. This was not the first time Pawan Kalyan had spoken about the role his family played during his most troubled years. In a 2023 appearance on the show Unstoppable 2 with NBK, he had spoken about a separate crisis at age 17 when depression and exam pressure had driven him to plan to take his own life using Chiranjeevi’s licensed revolver. Chiranjeevi was away from the house at the time. Their brother Nagababu and his wife Surekha intervened and stopped him.

Pawan Kalyan recalled what Chiranjeevi told him: “Just live for me. If you don’t do anything, that’s fine. But please live.” He said that conversation changed him. He turned to books, Carnatic music, and martial arts to find purpose.

The Naxalite admission follows a similar pattern. Pawan Kalyan has consistently credited Chiranjeevi with guiding him toward a constructive path during a period when his anger had no direction.

The turn toward politics

Pawan Kalyan said he has been active in public life since 2007 and 2008, well before he formally launched Jana Sena Party in 2014. He described a consistent base of Telangana youth who connected with him ideologically from as early as 2004.

“Even while I was doing cinema, I had a lot of very staunch Telangana youth who stuck to me since 2004 as some kind of admirers. They stuck to me when I launched my NGO, the Government Protection Force. Then we got into the Praja Rajyam Party. I think since then, they stuck with me,” he said.

The Jalsa parallel

The revelation carries a curious parallel with his film career. In the 2008 action-comedy Jalsa, directed by Trivikram Srinivas, Pawan Kalyan played a character named Sanjay Sahu. The character has a past tied to an extremist organisation before reforming and taking on a violent faction. His real-life admission about once considering that path adds an unscripted layer to a role he played nearly two decades ago.