During the past few weeks, efforts intensified to develop the most beautiful city in two Telugu states, Visakhapatnam as another Tollywood hub and shift the industry there.
Mega Star Chiranjeevi has taken the initiative and after holding discussions with other celebrities following favourable signals from the new AP government headed by CM Jagan Mohan Reddy, decided to meet him and come with a concrete plan.
Following the faux pas over invitation to Natasimha Balakrishna while meeting Telangana CM KCR, this time the celebrities invited him also for the meeting. However, Balakrishna skipped the meeting, citing his birthday celebrations according to his close sources.
The meeting went off in a peaceful and favourable manner and AP CM Jagan delighted Tollywood celebrities by offering over 300 acres of land for the construction of studios. He also announced various sops and concessions and Ministers Avanti Srinivas and Perni Nani promised more if Tollywood celebrities shift to Visakhaptnam.
When everything is going according to plan, Natasimha Balakrishna exploded a bomb saying though he was invited, the celebrities didnot wait for his decision but announced that he wouldn’t come on his behalf. He warned that he will not allow others to take credit or divide the industry into caste lines.
This is triggering speculation as to who is Vizag Tollywood’s villain. Balakrishna became MLA for the first time from Hindupur constituency and his brother in law chandra Babu became the first CM of divided Andhra Pradesh. During that time, he did only lip service in developing Visakhapatnam as a Tollywood hub. Balakrishna though is a senior star in the industry who didnot take any initiative during the last 6 years and now when Chiranjeevi took the initiative and even invited him to meet AP CM Jagan, he skipped the meeting citing trivial reasons and now started making wild allegations.
Many feel Balakrishna and Chandra Babu doesn’t want either Chiranjeevi or Jagan ge the credit for developing Tollywood in Visakhatpanam and so trying to put hurdles in all their efforts.