Some media organisations in Andhra Pradesh are holding a round-table conference on Thursday to discuss the latest “unofficial” ban imposed on two television news channels – ABN Andhra Jyothy and TV5, allegedly by the YSR Congress party government headed by Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy.

The organisers invited leaders of various political parties to the round table conference to express their solidarity with the two media houses and protest the alleged high-handed behaviour of the YSRC government.

As part of that, they invited Jana Sena Party chief Pawan Kalyan as well and initially, he is understood to have agreed to make it to the meeting, but later, he backed out.

He issued a statement saying he was not able to attend the round table conference as he was suffering from severe backache.

“I had suffered a spine injury during the shooting for Gabbar Singh and the doctors had advised me to go in for surgery. But I am managing with nature cure treatment which is still going on. I am not able to participate in public events,” he said.

Though Pawan’s problem might be genuine, his statement also led to speculations that he might be deliberately avoiding the round-table conference, as he did not want to support Andhra Jyothy MD V Radhakrishna.

Apparently, he was still upset with the negative campaign run by the daily and channel against him before the last elections.

“He attended several programmes in the recent past, including his own round table conference on Uranium mining and more recently, pre-release function of his brother Chiranjeevi’s film Sye Raa. How did he get back pain all of a sudden?” a scribe asked.