‘NTR’ producer: PIL against song only to please Chandrababu Naidu

HYDERABAD: Producer of the film ‘Lakshmi’s NTR’, P Rakesh Reddy, filed an affidavit before the Telangana high court on Tuesday urging it to dismiss the PIL filed by TDP MLA SVSN Varma seeking deletion of the song ‘kutra-daga’ (conspiracy) from the yet to be released Telugu film. The PIL says that the film should be banned and the song should be deleted as they are aimed at defaming AP chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.

Rakesh Reddy in his counter said that PILs were brought into force by the judiciary with a noble objective of reaching out to those helpless sections who cannot speak for themselves. But the current case is one that was not filed by the alleged affected person but by his follower who was doing it for the sake of gaining appreciation from his leader, the producer said. Even coming to the question of allegations, Rakesh Reddy said, there is nothing new in it that calls for bans and deletions.



The song was written by famous writer SriSri long before NTR became chief minister. And the allegations against Naidu are nothing new as far as NTR’s downfall is concerned, he said. “NTR himself said it when he was alive. His widow Lakshmi Parvathi told several times how NTR was dethroned in an unfair manner. Even NTR’s elder son-in-law Daggubati Venkateswara Rao said this. He even wrote a book on this episode describing vividly the episode of throwing out NTR from his CM’s seat,” said the producer. Moreover, a film or a person cannot judge whether or not Naidu is responsible for the downfall of NTR. A suit filed in a civil court seeking declaration to this effect is pointless, the film producer added.

Rakesh Reddy also mentioned a few lines about Ram Gopal Varma, who is directing this film: “He is a reputed film maker. He has produced more than 50 films in Telugu and Hindi. In the past also, he made some films with political overtones like ‘Raktha Charitra’ and ‘Sarkar’.”

The case may come up for hearing on February 12.