In a move aimed at strengthening and expanding the party base in the State, Jana Sena Party (JSP) president and Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister K. Pawan Kalyan has decided to admit leaders of other parties, intellectuals, educated people, and independent or apolitical individuals into the party.

For this, Mr. Pawan Kalyan has announced a 14-member committee that will coordinate and select leaders and individuals for inducting into the party. The move comes ahead of the likely conduct of elections to the local bodies in the State.

“The Joinings Committee comprises party MLAs, MLCs, an MP, senior leaders, corporation chairmen and others,” Mr. Pawan Kalyan said in a statement issued here on Tuesday.

The JSP chief said he would hold discussions with the committee members after returning from his ongoing Delhi visit.

According to sources, Mr. Pawan Kalyan is likely to give clarity on who should be welcomed into the party and who should not be, in the meeting scheduled to take place in the days to come. In the process, care will be taken to ensure that the leaders already working for the party in a particular constituency or mandal are not dissatisfied or disgruntled. “It should not lead to dissent and create unrest in the party,” says a JSP leader.

While picking up new leaders, the committee will look into their antecedents, and commitment and loyalty to the party’s ideology.

Leaders from all the three-regions have been made members of the committee, and prominent among them are MLAs Bolisetty Srinivas, Vamsi Krishna Srinivas, and Pantam Nanaji, Rajya Sabha MP Lingamaneni Ramesh, former Minister Balineni Srinivas Reddy, former MLAs Kilari Rosaiah and Samineni Udayabhanu, and Anantapur-Hindupur Urban Development Authority (AHUDA) Chairperson T.C. Varun.

Mr. Pawan Kalyan, who recently announced the JSP’s intention to contest the elections in Telangana, said a similar committee would be constituted in that State also.