The sudden meeting of popular director S S Rajamouli with Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy at the chief minister’s office at Tadepalli on Monday evening led to a lot of speculations in the media circles.
Rajamouli had met Jagan, along with a delegation of Tollywood led by megastar Chiranjeevi at Tadepalli on February 10, to discuss the issue of enhancing cinema ticket rates and other issues related to the industry.
Finally, in the first week of March, the government issued a GO enhancing the cinema ticket rates and allowing five shows a day for the new releases. The decision evoked appreciation from the film industry.
Against this backdrop, the meeting of Rajamouli with Jagan raised a lot of curiosity. He came down to Vijayawada along with producer D V V Danaiah in a special flight and drove to Tadepalli to meet Jagan after the conclusion of the assembly session for the day.
Everybody thought it was just a courtesy call to express thanks to Jagan on the tickets issue, but since Danaiah was also there in the meeting, it led to the talk that he might have asked for some more concessions for his upcoming film “RRR” scheduled to be released on March 25.
Maybe, Rajamouli has asked for permission to screen benefit shows across the state, at all the centres, for the benefit of fans of top heroes – Ram Charan and NTR. Jagan is learnt to have agreed to the request.
But what was surprising to everybody was the presence of state civil supplies minister Kodali Venkateshwara Rao alias Nani, instead of cinematography minister Perni Nani, at the meeting with Jagan.
Apparently, it was Kodali who got Jagan’s appointment for Rajamouli and Danaiah and hence, accompanied them to the meeting. In fact, Kodali was no way concerned with the film RRR or the film makers.
This led to the talk that Kodali had taken the initiative to arrange the meeting between Rajamouli and Jagan only on the request of NTR, who happens to be his close friend.
“Since NTR cannot come and meet Jagan personally for obvious reasons, he has asked Kodali to make the request to the chief minister on his behalf,” sources said.
