Shanti Yatra By Mohan Babu

It's no secret whose side he is on, and it's no secret that he's riled, either. Padmasri and pro-United-Andhra actor Mohan Babu has announced a Shanti Yatra soon. This will be a peace rally where he will mobilize a lakh people.

The actor was in the news a few weeks back when he took a pro-Samaikyandhra stand, and soon paid the price for it when militant pro-Telangana activists attacked the sets of the shooting venue on the outskirts of town where his more successful son Manchi Manoj Babu was shooting, his elder son Manchu Vishnuvardhan's film Saleem (Mohan Babu produced it at an estimated cost of Rs. 23 crores) was yanked off theatres forcibly in all Telangana areas (though it can be said that would have happened anyway, given how disastrous the film was), a school run by him in Tirupati was partly damaged, and KCR indirectly threatened to cut his tongue.

Mohan Babu said that when his movie Saleem ran into problems with TRS volunteers asking Telangana theatre owners and distributors to take it off screens, he incurred losses in crores, but no producer, director, technician or actor from the film industry came out in public in his support. That was too much for him to digest given his long association with Tollywood, and so through his Shanti Yatra he plans to bring "actual facts" to the public about the film industry, too.

In what can be interpreted as a conciliatory pose, Mohan Babu also stressed that he said nothing new when he suggested that everyone should stay together - he has always been one for maintaining brotherhood with fellow citizens, and has been asking people to be united since 30-35 years. Some politicians deliberately manupulated his statements, and the media misquoted him, leading to all the ruckus around him, he claimed. He suggested that anyone who doubts his intentions can always check his interviews of the past from the video cassettes available.

CM Rosaiah, who already has enough on his plate, expectedly asked Mohan Babu to wait for a while before conducting his rally.