This year, Tollywood will have a hard time picking sides during the elections
Tollywood actor Mahesh Babu
While Bollywood stars don’t have a problem asking the electorate to favour their friends, the equations are different down South. Tollywood stars, in particular, hesitate to campaign for their friends and family due to the fear of alienating a part of their fan base. For the upcoming elections, Mahesh Babu’s brother in law Jay Galla is contesting on a TD ticket, Allu Arjun’s father in law Sekhar Reddy is contesting on a TRS ticket and Charan’s father, Chiranjeevi, is the star campaigner for the Congress in Seemandhra. However, the stars are staying away from the campaign trail.
Quite a few other Tollywood personalities like Jayasudha, Murali Mohan, Ali and Babu Mohan are also contesting from different parties. A case to point is Jr NTR, who campaigned for the Telugu Desam vigorously in the last elections and burnt his fingers in the process. This time around, he is still waiting in the sidelines and it’s not clear whether he will campaign or not.
“Here the problem is if an actor campaigns for his relatives or friends, the party will take advantage and use his pictures for the party’s promotions. Moreover the actors are stamped as belonging to those parties thereafter. It later effects their careers and thus top actors stay away from campaigning,” says producer and director, Thammareddy Bharadwaj.
Jr NTR had campaigned for his friend Kodali Venkateswara Rao (Nani) and also for the Telugu Desam Party in the last elections. It had adversely effected the actor’s career. This time, Jr NTR is in a tricky position as he does not want to campaign and at the same time he can’t go against the TD as most of his family is involved in the party.It had earlier been rumoured that Mahesh Babu would campaign for his brother in law Jay Galla who is contesting on a TD ticket this time. But the businessman turned political told the media that the actor would not campaign for him. “If he campaigned, the actor would be stamped as a TD supporter. So he doesn’t want to spoil his career which is on a high right now,” says a source.
Allu Arjun’s father in law Sekhar Reddy is contesting from Ibrahim Patnam on a TRS ticket and the actor is under pressure to campaign for him. When asked whether he would campaign, Allu Arjun gives an evasive answer. “Please wait for a few days. My film is releasing on Friday and a few days after that I will talk on the subject,” he says.
According to a close source, Allu Arjun may campaign for a couple of days for his father in law. “But right now he doesn’t want to comment because if he says something it might affect his film’s openings,” says the source. Another top actor under pressure to campaign is Prabhas whose uncle Krishnam Raju may contest on a BJP ticket this time.
While Prabhas has always said in public functions that Krishnam Raju is his godfather, he has never campaigned for him as it might affect his career.
Even director Puri Jagannath said that he wouldn’t campaign for his brother who is contesting on a YSR Congress ticket from Narsipatnam. Asked whether he felt it would be wrong to campaign for his brother, Puri says, “It’s not wrong. He is in different field and I am in a different field. So I don’t want to mix the two.”
“When Ramanaidu contested a few years back, some of the industry people voluntarily campaigned for him because he is a respectable person,” says Thammareddy, adding that now the parties may misuse the publicity. “Some years back a TD candidate from Vijayawada used Chiranjeevi’s placards for campaigning and at the same time T. Subbarami Reddy also used the same actor’s pictures in Vizag. Now, it’s a different story,” says Thammareddy.”
( Source : dc )
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