TIRUPATI: As expected, a strict police and revenue surveillance marked the release of Chiru’s son, Ram Charan Tej’s much-touted film, “Magadheera” in five theatres in Tirupati. Though the film hit the silver screen on Friday all over the State, its release in Tirupati created a lot of ripples in the film and political circles in view of the war of words between the Congress activists and the Chiru-Charan fans in the run-up to the release.

Congress cadres raised serious objections over allowing the theatres to run six to eight shows of the film a day in the name of ‘fans shows’. Their complaint was that the theatres would be making some quick money in the process by jacking up the ticket price to a whopping Rs.500 each.

While the Chiru-Charn fans argued that running ‘fans show’ was only a normal practice anywhere in the State when movies of top-stars were released and that the issue was being needlessly politicised, the Congress leaders brushed it aside and maintained that it was violation of Cinematography Act and exploitation of the weakness of the fans by the producers and the theatre owners.

Further, on the basis of a complaint from the Congress workers, the district revenue and police authorities swung into action initially under the garb of ensuring cleanliness in the theatres and later issuing stern warning against running more than four shows a day, as it would pose a serious problem which might lead to law and order problem in the city.

Warning
With the authorities also issuing a strict warning that the theatres which ran extra shows of the movie would have their licences cancelled, it came as a rude shock both to the theatre managements and the fans since the tickets for the ‘fans shows’ have already changed hands by then. What is more, the authorities also announced that a team of one Deputy Tahsildar and three officers in the rank of Village Revenue Officer (VRO) each would be posted at all the theatres screening the movie to ensure that the theatres sell the tickets only at the face value that too on the ‘first-come-first-served basis’.

The repeated pleas to the authorities till the last minute by the theatre managements and the fans associations to take a lenient view of the issue, since the tickets were already sold out, were however stonewalled.

The result was that the five theatres where ‘Magadheera’ was released on Friday in Tirupati have sold the tickets at the face value and screened the movie only four times with the revenue and police personnel breathing down their necks at the ticket counters to ensure strict adherence to rules

-Hindu