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NTR National Awards: Cong aims to spoil TDP’s ‘star’ plans
Hyderabad: The state government is trying to put a spoke in the wheels of Telugu Desam Party’s plans to rope in Amitabh Bachchan and Rajnikanth for its Mahanadu at the end of this month and honour them with NTR national awards.
Instituted by the state government during TDP’s time in 1997, the awards have not been announced by the Congress government since 2004. The award comprises Rs 5 lakh in cash, a citation and a memento. Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Rajkumar, Bhanumathi Ramakrishna, Lata Mangeshkar and Dilip Kumar have been the recipients of the award in the past.
Peeved with the state government ignoring the NTR awards, the TDP and the NTR Trust have decided to pool in their resources and give the awards for the years 2003 to 2007 at the Mahanadu slated to be held in Tirupati from May 27 to 29.
Accordingly, TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu wants to rope in Amitabh Bachchan and Rajnikanth. “Through Amar Singh, Naidu will get Bachchan while he himself has good relations with the southern superstar. Apart from cobbling up the third front, the Mahanadu will have star attraction if these two actors make it,” a TDP leader said.
However, the state government is planning to throw a spanner in the works of the TDP. Getting wind of such a move, the YSR regime plans to upstage its rival by announcing the NTR awards from 2003 and give them away along with the Nandi awards in November this year. “We are waiting for the chief minister to return from the US trip to take a final decision on this matter,” an official said.
If the state government does announce the NTR awards before the Mahanadu, it will nullify TDP’s moves. However, last year, too, the government made a similar promise of announcing the NTR awards along with the Nandi awards, but it did not happen.
This time around, the battle over the NTR awards is set to be renewed after both YSR and Naidu return from their foreign trips next week.
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