The surprising visit of Andhra Pradesh cinematography minister Perni Nani to the residence of senior actor and YSR Congress party sympathiser Manchu Mohan Babu on Friday morning raised many eyebrows.
It is not immediately known whether Nani came to Mohan Babu’s residence on his own or was deputed by YSRC president and chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy to brief the meeting the latter had with the delegation of the Telugu film industry led by Chiranjeevi at his Tadepalli residence on Thursday.
The delegation held dicussions with the chief minister to thrash out the issues concerning the Telugu film industry, including cinema ticket pricing. The meeting ended successfully and the film stars expressed happiness over the outcome.
However, Mohan Babu was not part of the delegation, though his son Manchu Vishnu is heading the Movie Artistes Association, in which all the film stars are the members.
Despite being a close relative of Jagan, Mohan Babu’s name did not figure in the list if invitees for the chief minister’s meeting.
This has obviously hurt the senior actor, whose differences with the megastar Chiranjeevi is an open secret.
In fact, Manchu Vishnu openly commented a few days ago that Chiranjeevi’s meeting with Jagan last month was his personal and had nothing to do with the entire film industry and that one or two persons cannot represent the industry.
Against this backdrop, Perni Nani’s visit to Mohan Babu’s residence evoked a lot of curiosity. Some sections in the industry sources say Mohan Babu conveyed to Jagan that he was deeply hurt with the way he was ignored by the AP government on film industry issues.
So, Jagan has asked Nani to go and meet Mohan Babu to pacify him and explain the situation. Accordingly, Nani went to Mohan Babu and briefed him about the outcome of the meeting of the Tollywood delegation with Jagan.
Another version doing rounds is that Nani, who came to Hyderabad to attend the wedding of senior minister Botsa Satyanarayana’s son Sandeep in Hyderabad, got a call from Mohan Babu for a breakfast meeting.
So, Nani went to Mohan Babu on a courtesy call, where he discussed the film industry issues. In any case, the senior actor reportedly expressed his dissatisfaction over the importance being given to Chiranjeevi, while ignoring seniors like him.
