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Samantha’s Late Entry Disappoints Hardcore Fans
Today’s release ‘Majili’ is getting an emotional appeal all over as youths are appreciating the tear-jerking content of the film. However, they haven’t seen much of Samantha in this movie, and here is why they feel that.
Actually, the entry of Samantha happens in the movie at the interval. While her entry brought a new color to the film, surely the whole first half haunts you with the thought as to when this queen bee will come into the screen. Anyone who go to the film to watch her antics will get slightly disappointed.
On the other hand, Samantha has elevated couple of scenes with her emotion and a couple of scenes with her comedy timing. Surely she is a pillar to the second half as things get routine and her presence turns them a bit magical. Also, lack of romantic moments between the two are a let down for hardcore admirers of ChaySam.
Centre to keep tab on TDP ‘poll management’
Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu is known for his ‘poll management’ in the last days of electioneering. His party had won most of the elections in the past only due to its poll-management tactics.
The TDP leaders have been specifically trained to attract voters in the last few days of campaigning with money and other inducements.
The booth-level workers become very active in the final hours to entice the voters. Hundreds of crores of rupees flow only in the last two days before polling.
Now that Naidu had developed enmity with the Bharatiya Janata Party and particularly targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Centre is going all out to thwart Naidu’s poll management tactics in the eleventh hour.
The ongoing raids by the Income Tax department authorities on several TDP leaders and also by the local police working under the instructions of the Election Commission are part of the Centre’s strategy to prevent the TDP from indulging in any last minute poll management activities.
On Friday, the Kadapa police conducted a raid on the residences of TDP Rajya Sabha member C M Ramesh at his residence in Potladurthy of Erranguntla block to find out whether he had stashed any money in his house for distribution among the voters. However, they did not find much, as Ramesh had taken all precautionary measures.
A couple of days ago, the IT authorities raided the house of Ramesh’s friend and TDP candidate for Mydukuru constituency in Putta Sudhakar Yadav.
Earlier, last week, the ED attached the properties worth over Rs 300 crore belonging to Sujana Group promoted by another Rajya Sabha member Sujana Chowdary.
Ramesh alleged that the Election Commission was acting like a puppet of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.
“It is very clear that the searches were conducted at the behest of the Centre to help the YSR Congress Party. But we are not afraid of any such searches or raids,” Ramesh said.
Police Raids on CM Ramesh
Even as TDP is crying foul over the alleged ‘politically-motivated’ raids on its leaders, the raids continued on the senior leaders of TDP. A day after IT raids on TTD chairman and Mydukur MLA Putta Sudhakar Naidu, about 30 police personnel have reached CM Ramesh’s home early morning today. Around 6 AM, police people have come to CM Ramesh’s home and searched every inch of the three-storey building. Ramesh said to have questioned the police whether they are carrying ‘search warrant’, but cops declined to comment and reportedly told him that they are acting as per orders from the top.
Cops have searched for over an hour at CM Ramesh’s residence at Potladurthi in Erraguntla of Kadapa district. Cops turned back empty hand as they haven’t found ‘anything’ at Ramesh’s house. CM Ramesh and his brother Suresh Naidu were present at the house when cops raided.
After that, cops have raided the houses of CM Ramesh’s followers. CM Ramesh has fumed over the untimely searches of cops. He said these are politically motivated searches. He alleged that only TDP leaders are being targeted and said IT, police are trying to ‘scare’ TDP candidates ahead of elections.
Buzz: Is Facebook Helping BJP?
With Facebook removing almost 702 pages and accounts from India linked to the Congress Party, several aspersions have been cast on the social media giant’s policies. A Facebook statement said “we have removed 138 pages and 549 accounts which it found “connected to individuals associated with an INC IT Cell.” The page admins and account owners typically posted about local news and political issues, including the upcoming elections, candidate views, and criticism of political opponents including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Of late, Facebook has been taking stringent measures to regulate political advertisements to ensure the the platform is not spreading fake news, especially with Lok Sabha elections about to begin in just a few days. According to several leaders in the Opposition, this is going to indirectly benefit the BJP as they will have an undue advantage over the Congress following the removal of their accounts. Further, the Congress’ spend is comparatively lesser than that of the BJP on Facebook.
On the other hand, political observers also say that Facebook could also land up in trouble as it could be perceived as supporting the BJP’s agenda and pushing it secretly. “There is a possibility of this situation turning out to be like the one in America’s Presidential elections where Facebook was accused of promoting Trump,” said a political analyst. During the US Presidential campaign, there were accusations on the social media giant that the political ads on Facebook drove neutral voters to choose Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. Interestingly, Trump was also the highest spender on social media ads during his campaign for Presidency.
A similar trend could be repeated in India, where Facebook could push a lot of fence-sitters to vote for Narendra Modi again in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as the BJP is one of the highest spender on political campaigns on Facebook in India. Additionally, Narendra Modi’s 2014 social media campaign created a record of sorts for devising one of the best marketing strategies in the world, which earned him popularity and made him a social media star. The DNA of BJP is such that they believe in brand building which is part of their marketing juggernaut.
Even analysts claim that BJP is carpet-bombing social media, especially Facebook and Youtube to ensure that they reach every voter in every corner of India. According to a survey, BJP’s publicity blitz is so crazy that it is even ahead of Netflix, an American media-services and video streaming behemoth, and Trivago, a hotel price comparison website. Given that the saffron party spends so heavily, it is evident that it has a huge corporate backing in terms of financial donations.
With such huge spends and bets on Facebook to further political advertisements, will the social media giant fall in the same trap it faced in the US? Only time will tell.
Take the coupon, Vote for FAN
With the polling date approaching, all the political parties in the Andhra Pradesh state are trying their best to woo the voters. YSR Congress party has launched an innovative concept by distributing coupons to the people.
This incident is reported in Penukonda assembly constituency in Anantapur district. The local YSRCP leaders have made a plastic card that have a serial number. They reached the voters and distributed these card to them and also said, basically this is a coupon, take it, get cash and vote for FAN which is YSRCP’s election symbol. If voter does exactly what the YSRCP leaders have said, he/she would get an amount of Rs 1000.
The talk about the YSRCP’s coupon scheme reached local TDP leaders. They have caught people are distributing these coupon cards and handed over them to the police.
Seems like this is a new theory of ‘Cash For Vote.’
YCP’s Amanchi abuses cops as K***a Police
Chirala YSR Congress party MLA candidate Amanchi Krishna Mohan is caught red-handedly abusing the police who are doing their jobs. Going in details, the police have detained when Amanchi was campaigning. As the police could not list out details of Amanchi arrest, the YSRCP leader lost his cool. This video of Amanchi using filthy language against cops is going viral.
“Mee K***a Policulu,” said Amanchi which means you cops are eunuchs and even went on to abuse the concerned Superintend of Police. Having heard this, one of the cops warned Amanchi not to speak further, if not the consequences would be severe. Though Amanchi wanted to make another comment, he restrained looking at the number of cops surrounding him.
This is a clear cut violation of election code by Amanchi as the language he used against a government official is quite offensive. Meanwhile, the YSRCP is blaming the police for provoking Amanchi and YSRCP cadre.
Nation first, Party next: Advani
Benched by the Bharatiya Janata Party High Command, former Deputy Prime Minister and BJP’s veteran leader L. K Advani said that the guiding principle of his life has always been “Nation first, party next, self last.” Writing about the BJP’s core values, he said that the saffron party has never regarded others with different views as “enemies or anti-national.”
Ahead of the BJP’s foundation day, Advani in a blogpost said: “Right from its inception, the BJP has never regarded those who disagree with us politically as our enemies, but only as our adversaries. Similarly, in our conception of Indian nationalism, we have never regarded those who disagree with us politically as anti-national.”
Advani, has been replaced by BJP Chief Amit Shah as Gandhinagar Lok Sabha candidate. Except for in 1996, the Gandhinagar seat was won by Advani six times ever since 1991. Interestingly, Advani stressed on the need for “Defence of democracy and democratic traditions, both within the party and in the larger national setting” and said that “it has been the proud hallmark of the BJP.”
Commenting on the electoral reforms and elections, he said: “Electoral reforms, with a special focus on transparency in political and electoral funding, which is so essential for a corruption-free polity, has been another priority for our party,” adding that “elections were also an occasion for honest introspection by all stakeholders in democracy – political parties, media, authorities conducting the election process and the electorate.”
In his blog, however, Advani did not criticise Modi-Shah duo but was subtly indicative of the direction India is taking under the Modi government. Moreover, the first person to react to Advani’s blogpost was none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who tweeted: “Advani Ji perfectly sums up the true essence of BJP, most notably the guiding Mantra of ‘Nation First, Party Next, Self Last.’ Proud to be a BJP Karyakarta and proud that greats like LK Advani Ji have strengthened it.”
Looks like the RSS has got both Modi and Advani to arrive at a consensus for the greater good of the party!
KCR government performed poorly on voter concerns: ADR
The K. Chandrashekar Rao government in Telangana performed ‘below average’ on the most important concerns of voters including employment opportunities, healthcare facilities and public transport, says a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
Released on Friday, the ‘Telangana Survey 2018’ said the government also performed “poorly” in providing water for agriculture and tackling problems arising due to mining and quarrying.
Across the state, the major concerns of voters were better employment opportunities (65.99 per cent), better hospitals and primary healthcare centres (33.23 per cent) and improved public transport (25.89 per cent), according to the survey report by the election watchdog.
In rural Telangana, the top priorities were employment opportunities (63 per cent), higher price realization for farm products (45 per cent) and subsidy for seeds and fertilizers (44 per cent). The government performed ‘below average’ on all three, it said.
Employment (71 per cent), noise pollution (50 per cent) as well as air and water pollution (40 per cent) continued to be huge concerns for the urban voters.
Channel’s cheap tactics to target LP
It was a height of cheap journalism. Telugu television channel – TV5, which is known for its pro-Telugu Desam Party stand, indulged in a blatant character assassination of Nandamuri Lakshmi Parvathi, widow of legendary actor and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N T Rama Rao.
Based on a complaint given by one Koti, claiming to be a follower of Lakshmi Paravathi, with the Vinukonda police in Guntur district, the channel on Thursday night telecast a repeated story seeking to project her in a bad light – that she is a woman without character, sex maniac and above all, she had no loyalty towards NTR.
What is worse, the so-called WhatsApp messages allegedly given by Lakshmi Parvathi to Koti were also circulated among the media, which soon went viral.
The channel also went on broadcasting an audio having a purported conversation between her and another person, in which she allegedly made derogatory comments against NTR.
Obviously, the pro-TDP channel wanted to damage the character of Laksmi Parvathi for two reasons: one, she is now a general secretary of YSR Congress party campaigning against TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu and his son Nara Lokesh.
Secondly, she has suddenly become popular with release of Ram Gopal Varma’s film “Lakshmi’s NTR” in which she was projected as the most trusted wife of NTR and Naidu as a back-stabber and villain.
First of all, one doubts whether there is any authenticity to Koti’s complaint. One cannot even prove that the WhatsApp text messages to him were really from Lakshmi Parvathi, as anybody can create a phone number with her name.
So, even before the police took up the investigation and probed whether there is any fact in Koti’s complaint, the channel telecast it without any proofs and verification, so as to assassinate the character of the YSRC leader.
What more do you call it, if not the dirtiest journalism!
Title logo: ‘Venky Mama’
As a treat to all Akkineni and Daggubati fans ahead of the Ugadi festival, the title logo of ‘Venky Mama’ movie is unveiled.
The logo gives many details about the film. One side of the title, we can see a village set up and on the other side, there is army with helicopter and stuff.
So we can assume that either ‘victory’ Venkatesh or Naga Chaitanya will be seen as a soldier. Then the logo is surrounded zodiac symbols circle and makes an intriguing impression.
The genre of ‘Venky Mama’ is yet to be revealed but it’s up to the audience to keep guessing.
KS Ravindra (Bobby) is directing the movie while Raashi Khanna and Paayal Rajput are playing the female lead roles.
Suresh Productions and People Media Factory banners are jointly producing ‘Venky Mama.’
A Hero’s Anguish On Megastar’s Titles
He happens to be one of the popular mega heroes who is known for his coolness and also that great heart when it comes to doing something for his fans. But he is unhappy with one episode, as he feels that what is happening in Tollywood is not correct.
Generally speaking, we have family heroes coming with film titles that are used by their predecessors in the yesteryear. But now, while Nani has grabbed Megastar Chiranjeevi’s super popular “Gang Leader” title, then comes Bellamkonda Srinivas who has taken “Rakshasudu” title. When few managers met this mega hero regarding this, he’s said to have got upset.
“We don’t use and prolong the ideas for a longer time. This is what happens then. But who is going to listen?” the mega hero is said to have told to his team. Well, in the first place there is no wrong in other heroes using such titles but if mega heroes want to use themselves, then they need to rush.
Also, there are almost 150 film titles of Megastar and it’s not possible for the mega heroes to lay hands on all of them. While this particular mega hero’s anguish has a reason, surely its not something worth of giving some time.
After praising PK, Bandla Ganesh quits politics!
There is no dearth of maverick celebrities in Telugu film industry. They do not know what they talk and what decisions they will take.
One such classic example is actor-producer Bandla Ganesh, who made hit films like Sardar Gabbar Singh.
On Friday, Ganesh issued a statement surprising everybody that he was quitting from the Congress party and also politics permanently.
“I am relinquishing politics due to personal reasons. I am thankful to Congress president Rahul Gandhi and TPCC chief Uttam Kumar Reddy for encouraging me in politics. Now, I do not belong to any political party. I sincerely apologise to anybody who might have been hurt with my comments which I had made in the capacity of PCC official spokesman,” he tweeted.
Surprisingly, it was only on Thursday that Bandla Ganesh made political comments. He said though he was a Congress spokesman, he personally wished that Pawan Kalyan becomes the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh.
Ganesh joined the Telangana Congress party before the recent assembly elections and was appointed as the PCC official spokesman. And he started making all sorts of controversial comments.
At one stage, he even declared that he would cut off his throat if Congress did not win in the Telangana general elections.
Now that the Congress is neither in Telangana nor in AP, Ganesh realised that it is waste of being in the party.
Though he said he was quitting politics, there is no guarantee that he would not join any other political party. Watch out for more from him!
