Sunday, September 14, 2008

First-ever interview with de megastar!!!

We will do things differently: CHiru
Suresh Krishnamoorthy/M. Rajeev.
HYDERABAD: Three weeks after filmstar-turned-politician Chiranjeevi announced Praja Rajyam Party (PRP), he does not talk of different things, but only *doing things differently'.

This was in response to a question as to what the PRP's economic model was, he clarified that he was not thinking of new programmes to reach out and help poorer sections of people, but only improve implementation of existing programmes by modifying and building on functionalities.

In his first exclusive interview after his political *arangetram', he told The Hindu that did not have an agenda at all, going on to modify his words, saying “I don't have a personal agenda. Whatever the people want is what they will get. Let me go to the people and find out what they need”, he said in response to a question.As for policies, he said the PRP was quite clear on most pressing issues, be it Telangana or the Scheduled Castes categorisation.

However, he agreed that more important were the basics like health, education and welfare programmes, apart from development of infrastructure.An actor with three decades of experience before the camera, Mr. Chiranjeevi is confident of achieving the transformation required to move from *reel' life to *real' life, saying his *emotional binding' with people motivated and *charged' him. “I am very sure of getting at least two-thirds of seats in the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly”, he says, confidently.

Asking for some time before fine-tuning his policies, he said in two months' time, the party would have the required infrastructure in place, right down to the mandal-level. While aspirants would have to be in *sync' with his service motto, he does not rule out alliances with other political parties. “Manifestos of other parties are known. We will only have to see how far policies are mutually acceptable before we make allies”, he said.


ends.....