HYDERABAD — The New Year has begun on a bitter note for Tollywood as V. Rajasekhar, Telugu film actor and executive vice president of Movie Artists Association (MAA), the governing body of Telugu film stars, resigned from his position on Thursday evening. He turned in his resignation hours after he publicly spoke about his rivalry with actor Naresh Vijaya Krishna, the president of MAA.
The dramatic turn of events, which took place at the 2020 diary launch event of MAA, saw Tollywood’s superstars Mohan Babu and Chiranjeevi also locking horns with Rajasekar, revealing deep rivalries within the association. Interestingly, Babu and Chiranjeevi made up over previous disagreements.
MAA is a powerful governing body of the Telugu film industry, which can impose bans or boycott actors. Though Rajasekhar has resigned from the post the association can still impose a ban on him, preventing him from acting in films for a considerable amount of time.
The event on Thursday, which began on a lighter note with Chiranjeevi speaking about “unity” and the “need to sort out internal issues within the organisation”, took a sudden shift when Rajasekhar climbed on to the dais to grab a microphone. He then spoke about his longstanding rivalry with MAA President Naresh. Referring to his administrative position in MAA, which he took over after elections were held in March 2019, Rajasekhar said, “Since I took up the position I have not been doing films. At home, too, I am being chided because I have been working very hard for this association. The car accident which took place was also because of this (trouble in MAA).”
Rajasekhar is married to actor Jeevitha. He had escaped with minor injuries in November last year when the car he was travelling in overturned in a freak accident in Hyderabad.
Rajasekhar, who is known for his outspoken nature, further took a jab at Chiranjeevi, who had earlier asked association members to express their appreciation over the microphone and complaints in person. “Honorable Chiranjeevi said that MAA is like a family and complaints should be sorted out inside the family. But there should be no suppression of voices within the family,” he said.
Chiranjeevi’s remarks were about three office-bearers of MAA, Shivaji Raja, Paruchuri Venkateswara Rao and Srikanth, calling a press conference in 2019 to level allegations against president Naresh. The media conference was called as Naresh had publicly accused them of money laundering earlier.
Rajasekhar said, “In this association around 18 members are in one group and another eight in another. Even though Chiranjeevi said Shivaji and Srikanth did nothing wrong, Naresh had accused them of wrongdoing…”.
He continued, “This is the situation in this association. We have to be resigned to the fact that this is our life and that we have to suffer like this”.
The speech, which lasted for about three minutes, was interrupted more than once by actor Mohan Babu who seemed visibly livid and actor Jayasudha who seemed disturbed.
Chiranjeevi who had remained silent when Rajasekhar spoke, later asked the association to take “strong disciplinary action” against him. Rajasekhar had spoken disrespectfully, he said.
“Why should all of us be here for people to disrespect us?” he asked, adding, “I condemn his statements. He should not have come to the event if he did not want to participate in this joyous occasion. Very very sorry”. Rajasekhar spoke “aggressively” without “following protocol”, he said.
Other members including Mohan Babu too put forth similar statements and demanded disciplinary action.
Though Rajasekhar’s wife and actor Jeevitha came up on the dais and said that her family was ready to “work with the MAA family to sort out differences”, the actors on the dais refused to engage with her.
Public fights
On the surface, Rajasekhar’s complaint seems to be about MAA and its president, but there is the subtext of his rivalry with Chiranjeevi. Rajasekhar’s feud with Chiranjeevi reportedly began when the latter bought the rights to remake the Tamil film Tagore which Rajasekhar and his wife had eyed first. In 2008, the couple had joined the Congress to oppose Chiranjeevi’s newly floated Praja Rajyam Party. They left the Congress when the actor merged his party in it.
In a tweet after Thursday’s event, Rajasekhar said:
Public displays of displeasure are not entirely rare among Telugu film stars, with Mohan Babu himself having picked a fight with Chiranjeevi over a decade ago. Babu who is senior to Chiranjeevi had objected to the latter being given ‘living legend’ award at the platinum jubilee celebration of MAA in 2007. Chiranjeevi’s brother Pawan Kalyan too had openly retaliated against Babu by taking a dig at him at more than one public event. Later, Kalyan even mimicked the actor in one of his films, Attarintiki Daredi.
At the event on Thursday, Mohan Babu and Chiranjeevi, however, spoke fondly of each other in the diary launch event. Photos of Chiranjeevi hugging and kissing Babu on the cheek went viral, as the two actors appeared to bury the hatchet.
Rajasekhar’s letter
In his resignation letter, Rajasekhar wrote, “Though Mr. Naresh, the president of MAA, has been continuously degrading and insulting the committee members in many ways, I tried my best to stay in the association by trying to sort out issues. But Mr Naresh is repeatedly committing mistakes by not maintaining transparency, by not respecting the majority committee members’ decision and acting at his own will.”
Rajasekhar maintained that he had raised his differences with Naresh earlier in a “friendly meeting” with the “elders of the industry”. He was forced to vent his emotions at the diary launch event, he said, because he felt that “nothing has changed” despite bringing Naresh’s misgivings to the notice of others. Even the decision to hold the diary launch was not discussed in the executive committee meeting, he accused.
The spat between the actors comes close to two years after several female junior artists raised allegations of sexual harassment in 2018. In March that year, actor Sri Reddy protested against sexual harassment by stripping in front of the MAA office in Hyderabad. While female actors are also part of the association, not many had come for the support of junior artists who complained of rampant sexual harassment cases in the industry.