By South First Desk,South First Deskpublish
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Lokesh pays a filmy visit to Pawan: Politics meets popcorn in AP Assembly
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Cabinet colleagues meeting each other is not new. Still, it becomes news in Andhra Pradesh, especially when the ministers in question are Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan and IT and HRD Minister Nara Lokesh.
Several eyebrows were raised when Lokesh walked into Kalyan’s chamber to spend some time the other day.
Sightings of these two leaders together are as rare as a Tollywood hero without a six-pack. It later turned out that Lokesh was there to personally invite Pawan for a grand programme on 25 September, where appointment letters would be handed over to those who cleared the District Selection Committee exams — what the NDA likes to call a “mega recruitment drive.”
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Now, the event itself is no surprise. What surprised everyone was Lokesh knocking on Pawan’s door, considering the fan clubs of both camps often behaving like two archrivals in the ongoing Asia Cup cricket tournament. Lokesh may not be a matinee idol, but he certainly seems to wield more political weight.
Each time he takes centre stage, Pawan’s loyal fans feel as if N Chandrababu Naidu is polishing the family silver for his son, while their hero is being handed only the popcorn.
Of course, Pawan continues to shine brighter in cinema than in politics. His fans are still in hysterics over the teasers of OG, in which he swishes a sword like a medieval warrior. Ironically, it is the same man who burst out at YSRCP workers for using the phrase raffa raffa — borrowed from Allu Arjun’s Pushpa 2: The Rule.
For Pawan, fans are oxygen, while voters remain the background extras. He even admitted recently that he might not have entered politics at all had he realised just how electrifying his stardom was.
Meanwhile, Lokesh is slowly but steadily growing in stature, thanks to his father Naidu’s steady hand. In this context, the sudden meeting of these two hotshots of Andhra politics has become the Assembly’s favourite guessing game.
Was Lokesh genuinely trying to bridge gaps, or was he simply hoping Pawan’s roaring film fans would add some youthful, filmi energy to his mega event? Whatever the case, one thing is sure — a feisty crowd never hurts a political programme.
