At last, after almost a year and a half since rumours of his political 'arangetram' started doing the rounds, the megastar appears to have broken his silence. Sunday was the chosen day for him to agree to give exclusive interviews to the media.And he started with two English and three Telugu dailies.
Three weeks after filmstar-turned-politician Chiranjeevi announced Praja Rajyam Party (PRP), he has started giving hour-long, exclusive interviews to many from the media, starting with English newspapers The Hindu and Times of India and Telugu dailies Eenadu, Andhra Jyothi and Saakshi on Sunday.
Interestingly, rather surprisingly, he did not make any startling revelations, but only went on to break the ice with people who mattered in the media. He kept pulling one-liners out of his hat, like he is known to be doing these days. "I am not promising to do different things, but only saying I will do things differently in my endeavour to reach out to people and see that the benefits of development reach the poorest of the poor",
When asked about his party's economic model, he clarified that he would not be coming up with novel, innovative programmes, but instead, build on existing schemes and implement them better by adding value and increasing the beneficiary base so that large numbers of people could get the benefit.
On the frequently-asked question, specially by other political parties about his agenda, he said he did not have an agenda, leave alone a personal agenda. "Let me go to the people, find out what they need and then go about chalking out plans on how to solve them. The PRP has solutions to most problems. They are all there in the thinking stage. It will take some time for the thoughts to be converted into workable schemes. Give me some time", he said.
About policies, Mr. Chiranjeevi said the PRP was quite clear on most pressing issues - the issue of a separate Telangana, Scheduled Castes categorisation, welfare schemes, increasing reservations. However, the PRP was focussed on preparing proposals aimed at considerably improving infrastructure in the health and sanitation, education and employment sectors, he said.
Having commanded the camera in his three decades of experiences in the film industry, the megastar is confident of transforming himself from a 'reel' life hero' to a successful leader in 'real' life too. He said he drew inspiration, motivation and energy from the enormous goodwill he enjoyed among the lakhs of people.
