If you go through some social media accounts, you will be convinced that a good chunk of youngsters believe that Tollywood heroes are doing the BJP's bidding through their films. After last year's 'Kartikeya 2', this year's yet-to-be-released 'SPY' and the newly-announced 'The India House', Nikhil Siddhartha has been branded a Sanghi (meaning, an RSS-BJP man).
Prabhas has long been labelled one by a section of Netizens, especially after he started doing 'Adipurush'. The actor has never spoken out in favour of the BJP, though. His uncle, Krishnam Raju, was a Modi loyalist. That's all.
Ram Charan is the newest Sanghi as per many social media users. He is presenting 'The India House', which has been prematurely judged as a propaganda movie by Leftists. Charan recently attended the G20 Summit in Kashmir.
Jr NTR met with Amit Shah last year. Pawan Kalyan, of course, is an actor-politician with pro-BJP persuasions.
The above developments are not inter-connected. Nikhil is the only actor who made pro-Modi comments on social media in the past. Jr NTR, Charan and Prabhas are hardly in the BJP camp. They are just actors, and the latter two don't have even remote political aspirations.
Netizens are reading too much into some random things. Some of them have gone overboard and labelled even Natural Star Nani a Sanghi just because he supported Demonetization and the Balakot air strikes.
Youngsters on social media should be cautious before using labels for cinema stars. First and foremost, they are just entertainers. Nani made 'Shyam Singha Roy', which was against religious obscurantism. He was labelled a Communist by BJP supporters in an ironic twist.
It seems Telugu stars will have a tough time tackling the political narratives. There is no end to branding people as this or that in the times of polarization.
