Chiranjeevi and Balakrishna are known to be rivals traditionally. Back in their prime, they were Number one and two. Also, their communities are known to be rivals to each other.
Vangaveeti Ranga was murdered in NTR’s regime. The Opposition party, Congress, back then, gave that a caste colour and attributed it to the then TDP government and created Kamma – Kapu rift.
Since then, Balakrishna and Chiranjeevi were icons of the communities in the backdrop of that rift.
In films, Chiranjeevi enjoyed the upper hand for the most part of their careers but its Balakrishna all the way in politics. With their age, the rivalry also died down.
When Chiranjeevi got a shameful defeat, the competition lost its sheen.
But things changed a bit in recent times. Balakrishna suddenly started shining in his career. After the success of Akhanda, we have seen Balakrishna get so much of good name with Unstoppable show. He became closer to the family audience as well with that show.
This period coincided with the fall of Chiranjeevi for a brief period. Acharya failed miserably despite being a multistarer of Chiranjeevi and Charan. The openings were also affected for the first time in Chiranjeevi’s career.
We have GodFather next. The movie despite getting a decent talk failed to perform as per the expectations.
The rise of Balakrishna at the same time when there are doubts about Chiranjeevi’s stardom made Mega fans restless.
They have taken Waltair Veerayya so seriously since it is clashing with Balakrishna’s Veera Simha Reddy.
They gave their 100% to make the ‘mediocre’ content a hit. Sankranthi season also helped big time.
The insecurity and hatred on Balakrishna is so deep that they were on a riot on social media downplaying Balakrishna.
If not for Veera Simha Reddy getting Hit status, it would have been much worse.
They realized it is Balakrishna’s new found image with the family audience as the reason for those numbers.
At that time, Balakrishna gave an opportunity to them with his ‘Thokkineni’ comments.
It was Mega fans who took the issue more seriously than Akkineni fans. They also ensured Kapunadu members get hurt in the name of SV Rangarao.
We will have to see how they take it when Balakrishna and Pawan Kalyan’s Unstoppable show telecasts.
On the top of everything, Pawan Kalyan is trying to stitch an alliance with TDP under-estimating this ‘fringe’ attitude.
