Vijayawada: Actor-turned-politician Pawan Kalyan on Thursday called for a boycott of some Telugu news channels, accusing them of abusing women.
“Boycott TV9, TV5, ABN for abusing our mothers, daughters and sisters. And also we have to boycott them for making business out of nudity and profanity. Making business out of a helpless sister,” Pawan tweeted, dragging media organisations into a public spat between him and director Ram Gopal Varma.
Earlier, Varma had admitted that he had asked actor Sri Reddy to abuse Pawan using a derogatory term for his mother.
Pawan, however, sought to claim that Varma and TV9 owner Srini Raju were working in cohorts to defame him ahead of polls.
The actor has also tried to widen the controversy by stating that these news channels were friendly to Telugu Desam president N. Chandrababu Naidu and would not have run such a malicious campaign against the Chief Minister or his son Lokesh.
He also warned the TD chief against playing with the human sentiments, at least from now onwards. Accusing Mr Naidu of controlling the media, Pawan asked Mr Naidu as to what are his priorities. Pawan’s tweets which came few minutes after Mr Naidu sat for Deeksha on his birthday indicate a full-blown war with the TD.
The actor has also warned Mahaa News TV, which he claimed was funded by TD MP Sujana Choudhary or his benami.
He asked his fans to maintain calm and restr-ained them from resorting to violence even if Srini Raju files cases against him. “And I am also going for a long and powerful legal battle on these channel heads,” he added. Varma, however, denied any links with Srini Raju and accused the actor of instigating his fans to attack the channel owner.
