In late ‘90s, power star Pawan Kalyan suddenly appeared bald for a few months and that led to several rumours in the media.
According to these rumours, Pawan got into a dispute over a piece of land in Jubilee Hills in Hyderabad and he had come to know that dreaded faction leader and then Telugu Desam Party MLA Paritala Ravi was supporting the land grabbers.
In a fit of rage, Pawan reportedly rushed to Paritala den and confronted him. An agitated Paritala roughed up Pawan and got his head tonsured.
The rumours continued to remain afloat, despite clarification given by Ravi himself and the mega family. They had virtually created a rift between Kamma and Kapu communities then.
Subsequently, everybody later forgot the episode till ace director Ram Gopal Varma introduced a scene in his film Raktha Charitra” made on the life of Paritala who was later killed in January 2005, depicting Ravi getting the head of a person tonsured for confronting him.
After more than two decades, Pawan on Friday gave a clarification on this “gundu” episode.
At a meeting of his Jana Sena Party workers at Vijayawada, he recalled the rumours about his tonsuring of head. He said he did not even know who Paritala was then.
“I had to shave off my head those days because I was getting irritated with a series of films I was doing then. Just to take some break, I got my head tonsured. But it was linked to Paritala, for unknown reasons,” he said.
Pawan blamed it on some TDP leaders for spreading the rumours about his clash with Paritala.
“I know who they are and they are still in the TDP. I don’t think Chandrababu Naidu was aware of these rumours, but his party leaders spread canards against me. I didn’t know how to react,” he said.
He, however, clarified that he had still supported TDP in 2014, because he wanted to send a message that there should be no caste conflicts. He wanted the people of Vijayawada to get rid of casteism.
“I know there is no politics in Vijayawada without Vangaveeti Ranga episode. It was tragic that he was killed unarmed. At the same time, the attacks on the properties of Kammas after his murder were also unfortunate,” he said.
