It was in February 2018, when the Telugu Desam Party headed by N Chandrababu Naidu was in power. The arrogance of power had by then gone to the heads of each and every TDP leader then and they used to treat others with utter disdain.
As is his won’t, Naidu, who had come to power in 2014 with the support extended by Jana Sena Party chief and power star Pawan Kalyan, had virtually dumped the latter.
The TDP leaders never used to care for the power star, whose charisma had definitely helped them come to power.
One such leader was Nandamuri Balakrishna, senior actor and TDP MLA form Hindupur.
He never cared (even now, he doesn’t care for others) for other celebrities of Telugu film industry. He refused to acknowledge the presence of a popular actor like Pawan Kalyan then.
When media persons asked him about Pawan Kalyan’s plans to contest from Anantapur in the 2019 assembly elections, a furious Balakrishna shot back at the media saying: “Pawan Kalyan? Who is he? I don’t know who he is,” and then sped in his vehicle.
This has caused a lot of uproar in Jana Sena those days. In fact, leaders of all the parties criticised Balakrishna for not acknowledging the existence of Pawan Kalyan as an actor, leave alone as the brother of megastar Chiranjeevi. The fans of power star were obviously hurt.
They then recalled how Pawan Kalyan campaigned for the TDP in the last elections and shared the dais with chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
There are several pictures with Pawan and Naidu shaking hands and dining together. The media even dug out Balakrishna’s picture with Pawan Kalyan during a film shooting several years ago.
Now, Pawan Kalyan’s fans are recalling the comments of Balakrishna on the occasion of the latter’s talk show Unstoppable with NBK on Aha OTT platform featuring the power star, shooting for which had taken place on Tuesday.
Balakrishna had to wait for a long time at the exit door of the studio for Pawan Kalyan and when the latter finally came to the studio, the senior went all the way to the gate to receive him. Both of them hugged with each other.
The power star’s fans hit the social media saying proudly that the power star had made Balayya to wait for nearly one hour.
“The man, who once said “Pawan Kalyan who,” was made to wait for the same celebrity for the talk show. Now, Balakrishna must have understood who Pawan Kalyan is,” a netizen commented.
