Case registered on Chiranjeevi

Chiranjeevi is caught in a controversy after he attended an inter-caste wedding that triggered objections from the bride's family. The occasion was the marriage of noted Dalit activist-writer K Padma Rao's son Chetan with Nalini, a 24- year-old engineer belonging to an upper caste. The matinee idol attended the wedding, held at Film Nagar Club here on Saturday last, and blessed the couple. He also spoke spiritedly about the virtues of inter-caste marriage and the need for creating a casteless society.

Accusing the actor of staging a drama only to gain political mileage for his newly-launched party, Nalini's parents T Subba Rao and T Mani pointed out how Chiranjeevi himself had disapproved of his teenage daughter's proposal to marry her lover outside the caste. They went to a local television channel with their version of the story and made allegations against the actor and the Dalit writer. Nalini's parents claimed their daughter was engaged to a boy of the same caste just a week ago. Now the parents filed a case on Chiranjeevi and Padma Rao at SR Nagar police station here in Hyderabad