The issue of sexual exploitation of actors in the Telugu film industry has now decidedly taken a political turn. On Friday, actor-turned politician Pawan Kalyan and his family – including older brother Chiranjeevi – met artistes at the Telugu Film Chamber of Commerce, in Hyderabad’s Film Nagar. Pawan Kalyan had earlier alleged that actor Sri Reddy – who set the cat amongst the pigeons when she stripped to protest sexual harassment in the industry – abused him at the behest of Andhra CM Chandrababu Naidu’s son, and minister Nara Lokesh.
The solidarity meeting was attended by Chiranjeevi, Naga Babu, Ram Charan Teja, Sai Dharam Tej, Niharika and Allu Arjun. Apart from his family members, several others also joined Pawan Kalyan for deliberations.
The discussion around sexual exploitation in the Telugu film industry took a different trajectory after Pawan Kalyan chided Sri Reddy last week, and said that she should have approached the police instead of the media. In response, actor Sri Reddy, who has been giving several interviews to the media, called Pawan Kalyan a “motherf****r” and showed him the middle finger.
Angry and upset, Pawan Kalyan has been lashing out at Sri Reddy, at Ram Gopal Varma who has accepted to instigating Sri Reddy to abuse Pawan Kalyan – as well as the Telugu Desam Party and three television channels, namely TV9, ABN and Mahaa News. Terming them ‘Dream Team’, he has been accusing them of helping the TDP abuse his mother.
After several hours of deliberation, it was expected that Pawan Kalyan would address the media. However, the actor-politician did not speak, and instead continued with his barrage of tweets accusing three media channels and the ruling Telugu Desam Party of targeting him.
Sources tell TNM that the Jana Sena chief was livid at the meeting however, and questioned why the Movie Artists Association (MAA) had not taken any action against television channels that were airing programmes and debates that alleged demeaned the family members of artistes.
Following this, the association has called for a meeting on Saturday, and are likely to issue a statement supporting Pawan Kalyan.
The controversy
On Thursday night and Friday morning, the actor made a series of explosive tweets in response to Sri Reddy’s remarks.
It must be recalled that after an audio conversation of Sri Reddy was leaked, where the actor blamed director Ram Gopal Varma (RGV) and stated that it was his idea to hurl abuses at Pawan Kalyan – RGV had admitted to the accusation and took responsibility for the remarks made by Sri Reddy.
The Jana Sena chief saw a political link there too: He claimed that Director Ram Gopal Varma is related to Srini Raju, who is the owner of TV9 – one of the channels he has been accusing of going after him.
Meanwhile, Ram Gopal Varma took a dig at Pawan Kalyan once again. The director took note of all the tweets put out by Pawan Kalyan and answered each of them on Facebook.
He wrote, “I swore on my mother that I won’t make any negative comments about Pawan Kalyan. But after reading his tweets, I would like to respond, not negatively, but logically.”
Responding to Pawan Kalyan’s accusations that Ram Gopal Varma, Nara Lokesh, Srini Raju and Ravi Prakash were running a malicious campaign against him for the past six months, RGV replied, “Pawan Kalyan sir, I haven’t even read such a conspiracy theory in renowned Agatha Christie’s novels. I can also claim that your urgent meeting is to divert attention from the protest for Special Category Status carried out by Chandrababu Naidu, and to lower the box-office collections of Bharat Ane Nenu, but I won’t.”