That there is a yawning gap between Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu and his nephew and popular actor Junior NTR, ever since the former dumped him after using his services in the 2009 assembly elections is an open secret.
Jr NTR has been keeping away from the TDP activities for the last 13 years and since then, there has hardly been any occasion when he had seen Naidu eye-to-eye at any function – family or otherwise.
So, nobody took it seriously when the TDP invited Jr NTR to the birth centenary celebrations of his grandfather and legendary actor N T Rama Rao in Hyderabad, being held by an organising committee of the party on Saturday.
Expectedly, Jr NTR excused himself from attending the event. He had conveyed to the organising committee headed by TDP leader T D Janardhan on the same day that he wouldn’t be able attend the programme because of his pre-arranged birthday celebrations on Saturday.
Apparently, Naidu also did not expect Jr NTR to attend the programme. And he chose not even to extend birthday wishes to the actor.
Even in the last few years, Naidu ignored Jr NTR on his birthday, while extending the birthday wishes to all others in the industry, including Chiranjeevi and Pawan Kalyan.
For that matter, Jr NTR, too, chose not to greet Naidu on the latter’s birthday held last month. Even in the past, he maintained silence on Naidu’s birthday.
Interestingly, Naidu’s son and TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh has been regularly greeting Jr NTR on his birthday every year. This year, too, Lokesh tweeted, extending birthday wishes to Jr NTR.
While praying the god to bless Jr NTR with good health to Jr NTR, Lokesh wished that all the forthcoming films of Jr NTR would be big hits. Thus, he conveniently avoided any political element in his birthday greetings!