Parties banking on cine glamour

CELLULOID WRAPPING

Mahesh Babu, Balakrishna and Pawan Kalyan are the `unofficial' brand ambassadors for the Congress, the TDP-led Grand Alliance and the PRP respectively

VV Balakrishna I ENS
Hyderabad, January 18

TOP Telugu cine heroes -- Pawan Kalyan, Balakrishna and Mahesh Babu -- are the new brand ambassadors for three political parties in the next Assembly elections, a first triangular fight in the State's politics.
Despite their tall claims that the Grand Alliance and the development mantra would fetch votes by the Opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the ruling
Congress respectively, they are invariably banking on cine glamour, giving doubts over their assertions. Even the cine hero Chiranjeevi-led Praja Rajyam Party (PRP), which is going to the people with a clean image promising to bring a change in the State, is not exceptional in this regard. Chiranjeevi's brother Pawan Kalyan is believed to be Mr Dependable for the PRP to fetch youth's votes.
The three top heroes from Tollywood are believed to be the `brand ambassadors' for their respective parties, though the parties do not officially claim so.
When the top brains of four parties -- the TDP, the TRS, the CPM and the CPI -- met at TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu's residence recently, there was a comment from observers: ``All the four parties should depend on Balaiah to promote the Grand Alliance.'' Proving this to be true, TDP chief Naidu appraised Balaiah on the formation of the Grand Alliance the same day.
Balaiah is scheduled to kick-start his tour on January 29 from Hindupur. In the same way, superstar Krishna's son Mahesh Babu is likely to campaign for the Congress. It seems that the Congress' efforts to rope in Mahesh Babu were fruitful, as Mahesh's uncle Adiseshagiri Rao recently confirmed that the young hero would campaign for the ruling party. However, Mahesh Babu will confine himself to a couple of meetings and not devote much time for the campaigning.Pawan Kalyan too has decided to conduct padayatras from Karimnagar district and continue his campaign till the end of the elections. Apart from these three stars, actresses Vijayasanti, Roja, Jeevitha and Kavitha and veteran heroes like Harikrishna too act as promoters for their respective parties. NTR Jr, Taraka Ratna, Kalyanram, Dharmavarapu Subrahmanyam, Vijaychender, Rajasekhar and others too will hit the roads to seek votes.