26 January 2022
Hyderabad

Nandamuri Balakrishna, who courted a fresh bout of storm with his remark over the legendary ANR at a recent meet of his latest release, Veerasimha Reddy, clarified over the brewing controversy. Stating that ANR likes him a lot, he tried to put a closure to the entire episode. “They call Ramarao as NTVodu. Similarly Nageswara Rao is called Nagi gadu. There are different states and there are different accents. It just came out of flow. Nageswara Rao is my babai. He likes me a lot; his affection towards me was more than what he had for his own children. I would reciprocate his love with the same affection. Affection was missing there, whereas it was on my side. Remember that! Nageswara Rao garu is a great actor. He is one of the two eyes of the industry. I already told this: I learnt discipline from dad and how to distance myself to extols, from babai. He was given the first NTR national award by the government. For more, you can refer to my speech there,” Balayya said.

On Sunday, referring to one of the guests on the podium during his speech, Balayya had said, “If he is there on sets, I would pass time easily discussing shastras, dad, dialogues, this Rangarao, Ee Akkineni Thokkineni.” The Thokkineni observation particularly drew the ire of Akkineni fans, who demanded an apology from Balayya. They expressed their displeasure by staging protests all over the two Telugu states. ANR’s grandchildren Naga Chaitanya and Akhil issued joint statements over the whole episode on Tuesday. Posting on Twitter, they wrote: “Nandamuri Taraka Ramarao garu, Akkineni Nageswara Rao garu and SV Ranga Rao garu’s creative contributions have been the pride and pillars of Telugu Cinema. Disrespecting them is degrading ourselves.”